Candy From Strangers
by Bibliotecaria.D
Summary: Wherein this author took Transformers prompt-challenges like, well, you know. (Pt. 10: Optimus Prime puts on an erotic dance in a parking lot; Sunstreaker has magic hands; Ambulon takes Rung (and himself) by surprise; Blast Off's bad day infects the other Combaticons. There are dolphins involved.)
1. Chapter 1

Wherein this author took Transformers prompt-challenges like, well, you know.

* * *

**Title:** Candy From Strangers

**Warnings:** Random prompts create random ficlets.

**Rating:** PG

**Continuity:** G1

**Characters:** Many.

**Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt):** An open post where I asked for people to please drop prompts for me, and I attempted to write them as fast they appeared.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Megatron/Optimus - negotiations_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"No?"

"Never."

"Never."

"Yes, never."

"Yes?"

"No."

Soundwave kept his attention on the datapad with the ceasefire terms on it. He had more dignity than Jazz, who was watching the negotiations like a tennis spectator. Back and forth, back and forth.

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes?"

"No."

"But..."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"We're going to be here a while," Jazz murmured.

Soundwave still didn't look up, but a careful observer would have seen him nod.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Metroplex - sometimes even cityformers needed a hug_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Technically speaking, it was a difficult procedure. Even without a war going on, sheer size would have made it hard to implement. Coordinating with the strict patrols Red Alert had put into place for this very short time period of vulnerability plus wrangling personnel known for their independent personalities made the whole thing somewhat of a logistical nightmare. Still, anything worth doing was worth doing right, and nobody was going to allow First Aid to do it all himself. That'd be like a plush teddybear trying to turn back an ocean tide: kind of cute at first, but ultimately pathetic and probably lost to undertow. He'd turn up on a beach somewhere, wandering in dazed circles and convinced he could do better next time.

So. Coordination and cooperation, supersized. They were Autobots! Surely they could do this with a minimum of fuss!

The combiner teams tried, bless their contrary little sparks, but combining outside of combat required far more internal cooperation than they were used to. The outside pressure to combine or die just wasn't there this time. Defensor managed, of course, because his combiner team was all about stability. He combined on the first attempt and stayed combined the whole time, although he had a tendency to fuss as First Aid's worries came to the forefront. Watching First Aid fuss was adorable, but a full-sized gestalt fluttering his hands and twittering, "Oh my, we'll have to fix that later. Dearie me. Can someone get something from the medbay for us? Please?" was rather disconcerting.

Superion and Computron gave it three separate tries apiece before Defensor somehow got the 'sad First Aid' look down pat and turned it on the Aerialbots and Technobots. Giving up wasn't an option under that look.

While First Aid was guilt-tripping the other combiner teams like a professional emotional travel agent, Red Alert was working on the other Autobots. Trying to get three gestalts, five Dinobots, and every Autobot not on duty herded in one direction was like trying to sculpt water: yeah, good luck with that. But Red Alert had dragged everyone through security measures tougher than this, and he could deal with it. Even if he had to kick their collective afts one at a time. The procedure had a three-hour time block. He was an experienced aft-kicker. Do the math.

Calculating the speed of aft-kicking divided by acceptable time span squeaked them under the limit just in time. That, after Red Alert had screamed himself hoarse and Ultra Magnus had called on Daniel's puppy eyes as emergency backup.

But they did it. Eventually, everyone latched onto Metroplex, because sometimes even cityformers needed a hug.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_G1, Cassettes - taking the high road_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"Is this legal?"

"Do I care?" Frenzy ducked his head and scowled at the display. "Here, hold this."

Rewind jumped a bit as the Decepticon Cassette shoved the removed paneling at him. "Wha - o-okay." He managed to grab it before it fell, thank Primus, because he wasn't sure he wanted to endure another one of Frenzy's endless mocking sprees. He wasn't clumsy! He was just rattled by the other Cassette's methodology.

Infiltration was nothing new to the Autobot Cassette. Infiltration via forged identification cards and boldly walking through the front door of a Quintesson Consulate took ball bearing diameter Rewind wasn't sure he had the correct measurements for. Blaster had been the one pressing for more planning, but Soundwave's Cassetticon had been adamant that this was one assignment they could just wing-it on. Infiltrating the Quintessons was always a tricky matter, and Frenzy had argued that extensive planning just allowed for more confusion when the plans failed.

That argument still seemed off to Rewind, but they hadn't had time. Frenzy and Rewind had gone in with the bare bones of a plan, and now Rewind was stuck holding a computer panel as a Decepticon hacked into the network. He couldn't help but fidget, optics flicking up and down the - temporarily - empty hallway. They were going to be in such trouble if they were caught…

"Huh." Frenzy had tapped into the building's network, and the look he turned on the Autobot was surprisingly thoughtful. "This is...alright, Autodumb." Rewind let the name-calling pass. Frenzy's mouth ran on automatic on such things. "If we **were** gonna do this the legal way, what'd be our first step?"

Rewind was a Cassette. He knew that look. "Incriminating data?"

"By the cargo load." The two Cassettes shared a fierce, ugly grin. "I'll stay here and run interference to keep them from dumping the computers."

"And I," Rewind said as he put the paneling down to lean unobtrusively against the wall, "will be a concerned Cybertronian citizen and kindly inform the local authorities that they might want to investigate the Quint Consulate." The vengeful expression wiped away into something saintly, and Frenzy smirked in respect for the Autobot's acting ability. "Oh-so-legally, of course."

"Nice and legal," Frenzy agreed, and that made sticking it to the Quints even more satisfying.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Grimlock/Optimus, "That does _not_ go there."_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"That does _not_ go there."

Optimus looked up. The proper grammar was almost as surprising as the words themselves, at least when coming from the massive Dinobot standing in front of him. "Pardon me?" Optimus asked, baffled. The table he'd just pushed out into the corridor sat there looking inoffensive. It'd been nicked and dinged but was still functional. The Autobot leader couldn't tell why exactly Grimlock was glaring at it like it had six fingers on its left hand and had killed his father.

"Me Grimlock said - "

"I heard you," he interrupted patiently. "I simply don't understand why you believe it shouldn't be here." He'd moved the table because Autobots were always leaving miscellaneous Earth objects of interest on his desk. He liked the practice of giving him things - it was a very appreciated gesture of affection he'd never gotten before becoming so close with this particular crew - but he wanted to share his collection with the rest of the ship. Having a display table had seemed like a viable solution.

Apparently not, if the glare meant anything. Grimlock started to say something, then just shook his head and stalked forward to grab the table and move it out of the corridor himself. He shoved it back into the office with a grunt.

Optimus stood aside and let him because it wasn't worth fighting over without reason. Which there must be, because Grimlock wasn't one for flimsy whims. "Why - ?"

Grimlock held up a finger: patience, please.

A minute later, the floor jittered. Both mechs adjusted their stances without even thinking about it. Some things became automatic when one lived with it on a daily basis. The jitter increased to a rumble, and suddenly there were Dinobots turning the corner. Optimus pressed himself to his own office door to get out of the way as three out-sized mechanical dinosaurs stampeded by in complete disregard for whatever might have been in their path. Grimlock just folded his arms and weathered the stampede by standing right there in the middle of the corridor, but then, he was big enough that getting nudged by a brontosaurus was no big deal.

The Prime blinked after the Dinobots, watching three tails turn the next corner. As…they usually did this time of day, now that he thought about it. Huh. "Ah. So it doesn't go there."

"Me Grimlock said so."

"Indeed."

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Soundwave - "Tyrant of the Seraglio" 'verse_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

There were pillows missing.

Soundwave counted again, hoping against hope, but the count came up three short. He swung his head, searching the room by sight. Megatron and the ex-Prime were debating something by the window. Or rather, Optimus leaned against the window while Megatron stood as near to it as the slave-bands allowed. There were no pillows at their feet or in their hands.

He'd hoped the ex-Prime had the missing pillows, because visits from fellow Autobots roused nostalgia in Optimus. Sometimes the ex-leader handled the pillows afterward, appreciating them all over again as he remembered Earth and the _Ark_. Soundwave had hoped...but, no. Hope was useless. He knew better than to succumb to an emotional crutch. He needed to _search_, not stand here hoping.

Moving took an exhausting amount of effort, but it was easier than it had been. Soundwave carefully walked to the bed and leaned down to put his hand on the surface. His knees met the floor with a muffled _thud_ as his balance gave out at the very end, but the two harem slaves didn't even glance over. Soundwave bent and peered under the bed, sticking an arm under to swish about in futile search. He'd already looked here. He'd already combed the entire harem for the missing pillows, and they just weren't here!

He looked uncertainly to the door. Brawl had done a standard post-visitation check on them after Ironhide had left. Usually the tank would kick any stray pillows back into the harem, so they likely weren't out there. He was technically permitted to leave the harem, but if he left, and someone was waiting outside -

No. Not even if Brawl had somehow ignored a pillow lying right in the middle of the guard room would Soundwave voluntarily leave the safety of the harem.

Yet his systems were starting to amp up as fear built, tarry and hot. The pillows were missing. They were his responsibility. He'd been explicitly _ordered_ to keep them organized, and there were three missing. That was three times the failure. One pillow might have slid past, but three? His Master would _know_. Megatron had tried a lot in his time bound to the harem. Soundwave had attempted far less, but it didn't matter. Ex-tyrant or crippled Communication Officer, their owner always knew what they were up to. There were three pillows missing, and that meant Soundwave had failed to obey. Three times, meaning that the punishment would be multiplied by three as well.

The consequences would be...brutal.

Still on his knees, Soundwave stared fixedly at the door, convinced that the next time it opened, a world of pain would walk through and descend on him.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_First Aid - drunk_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Some mechs couldn't hold their highgrade. Frag, some mechs couldn't hold their mid-grade. A few extra cubes, and Prowl would start stifling giggles over the absurdity of life outside regulations. Ironhide tended to get maudlin. Optimus Prime got oddly quiet and stared into space until he passed out.

Nobody ever really thought twice about why First Aid, Hoist, and Ratchet, of all mechs, never once got sloshed. Didn't think about it, that was, until First Aid returned from battle absolutely drunk.

"I don't know what happened!" Sideswipe said as he poured the ambulance onto a repair berth. First Aid promptly slithered off the opposite side and puddled onto the floor, which he then started talking to. The red frontliner's expression of utter panic only deepened as he flailed, trying to catch the tipsy Protectobot before he slid out of reach. His hands snatched empty air. "He took a shot to the chest and just lost it!"

Well, that was slightly worrisome. The hole and associated burn mark seemed far below the spark chamber, but getting ahold of the wrigglesome junior medic to verify that fact took some doing. Ratchet finally enlisted a severely weirded-out Sideswipe and truly amused Bumblebee to coax him out from under the office desk once the Chief Medical Officer managed to corner his subordinate there. Who knew that a cratered First Aid would be so rambunctious?

"Punctured auxiliary fuel tank," Ratchet diagnosed with some relief after opening up the other ambulance - and swatting said ambulance's hands out of the way. "His holding tank for emergency patient transfers took a hit," he explained when Sideswipe and Bumblebee gave him quizzical looks. The puzzlement only deepened. "All medics have one." See the depth of their confusion, Ratchet? See it? "I don't suck down so much energon because I have a habit of getting overcharged," Ratchet said dryly. "Anytime we get access to mid or highgrade, we fill our auxiliary tanks with as much as we can. It saves lives out on the field."

That did explain why Sideswipe's homebrew disappeared in copious amounts at the medic table during parties, anyway. Huh. One puzzled solved.

That did leave First Aid and his inexplicable drunkenness. "Wait," Sideswipe said slowly. "He took a hit to a **fuel tank**, and he's still standing?" Er, slouching. Wavering in a vaguely upright manner. Whatever. Sideswipe's point was that that dead mechs shouldn't be managing even that much.

"It should have killed me," First Aid declared seriously, then ruined the scarily true statement by spontaneously hugging both his 'captors' around the necks. "I'm so lucky!"

Ratchet sighed. "Yes, it should have. A direct shot to a fuel tank should have caused a large explosion, not a puncture. You are **very** lucky."

"What're you going to do?" Bumblebee said over his new neck ornament. "Surgery?"

"Yes, but only after the tank's drained. At the rate it's mixing with his regular fuel, we're going to have an overcharged Protectobot on our hands for at least a day. I could drain it faster, but..." Ratchet gave the Autobot now determinedly squirming free of Bumblebee and Sideswipe a fond pat on the head. "Let him enjoy his luck for now. It's not every day one of us dodges a bullet with his name on it."

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Optimus Prime - losing his temper. Spectacularly. Any reason._

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes, or I will use this table to rearrange your internal structures to resemble one of Wheeljack's design projections, rip out your vocalizer and replace it with **Starscream's**, put my foot so far up your aft your teeth with have tires, and donate your helm to a thirsty family in Africa for a bucket."

"...I'll think about it."

"You'd better!"

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Footnotes AU, Sandbox Story Arc: Sunstorm meets the sand - "What's a religious mech to believe?"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Troubled, the fiery yellow Seeker stood on the peak of Shockwave's Tower and wondered why he'd been released. Because he was the Hand of Primus, the tool of holy destruction, but usually Megatron kept him statis-locked and confined behind security so heavy even a true prophet such as himself had difficulty escaping. Out of fear of Primus' judgment, no doubt(1).

"Go," Shockwave had said hoarsely, sounding strangely gritty as he'd waved Sunstorm out of his cell. "Defend us."

If there ever was a way to redirect his righteous wrath, a plea for salvation was a quick solution. Sunstorm's immediate fury had cooled to intrigue, and he'd followed the blasphemous Guardian of Cybertron's(2) instructions to emerge here.

The wave of sand descending from the sky was a visible, silty rain. The sentient lifeforms were numerous and deadly. They were killing Cybertron, grain by grain. Shockwave had probably meant for the Seeker to attack the waves, turn as much of them to glass as he could, but Sunstorm hesitated. Shockwave's words came back to him, and they troubled him.

Defend who?

By all logic, Primus had created the sand. The tiny lifeforms were far more closely related to Decepticons and Autobots than anyone would like to admit, by action and deed if not biology. Was Sunstorm to attack Primus' creations without provocation? Autobots killed Decepticons and Decepticons killed Autobots; murder was no reason for Sunstorm to destroy the sand. Yet Shockwave obviously thought he should.

"What's a religious mech to believe?" he whispered to his God. "Am I to let Your children die by killing others?"

Primus didn't answer.

(1) Yeah, because locking up the dangerous psychotic flaming ball of religious ire required a fear of Primus. Right. Whatever. Megatron only got religious when it involved a cult of personality focused on himself.

(2) The presumption of any Cybertronian taking on such a lofty title was enough to froth Sunstorm's foam on a regular day. Add to that the sheer unworthiness of a blatant atheist like _Shockwave_ taking the title, and Sunstorm was reduced to sputtering indignation.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Bluestreak - human sign language_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

If Bluestreak had never been one for sitting still before Earth, he was positively twitchy afterward. He was always moving. His hands fluttered, his doors flicked up and over, his windows raised and lowered, and even when silent, his mouth kept shaping words. He squirmed when he sat, rocked back and forth when he stood, and his hands traced intricate shapes of nonsense no matter what he was doing at the time.

The rest of the _Ark_ crew displayed several similar symptoms when they returned to Cybertron. The other Autobots thought they were restless. Decepticons thought they were nervous.

Truth was, they were really just a bunch of gossips talking behind everyone's backs.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Mikeala Banes - kicking ass and taking names_ ("The Princess Is In Another Castle" continuation)

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Ironhide is dead. Ironhide _is dead_.

It's been years since the Autobots last had any contact with her. She'd dropped off their radar the moment Sam dumped her, and it wasn't like she'd ever been close to any of them. Yet she has loud, clear memories of the bark of guns, the sneer of an alien face as he supervised the firing range. She recalls the kick against her wrists and shoulder until she went home at night hurting, and his half-angry voice shouting insults at her until she picked up the gun again.

Ironhide is dead.

Worse, the other Autobots are gone. She's caught up on the news, staring in pale-faced horror at the antiquated TV set that spewed words it took her three repetitions to finally understand. It was the unbelievable footage of the launch and destruction of the Autobots' shuttle that shook her from shock into screaming and throwing her beer across the room. The Autobots have left Earth, the Autobots have_died, _and the alien planet on the horizon is here. It's here, and Earth's goddamn leaders are _stupid_ enough to trust the words of _Decepticons?_

She's looking out the back door, numb with something she thinks should be grief and feels more like rage, when the spacebridge goes down. The burning curve of Cybertron writhes, oddly flickering like the TV she's left on inside. The planet inverts like the hemisphere is getting sucked down a drain.

Maybe she should feel pity for the Autobot's abandoned world, but all she can remember is her introduction to it via Optimus Prime's optical lightshow. The planet had been ruined by war. The survivors had left, searching for the AllSpark to bring it back to life. The AllSpark, however, is gone. This 'Sentinel Prime' the news talks about failed before he even began this insane attempt. He was trying to resurrect a dead world using her living world, and she feels no pity whatsoever for his failure.

It twists her heart strangely to watch a world tear apart on the horizon, but she thinks it is vengeance. It is a proper ending.

Ironhide is _dead_, the Autobots are _dead, _and she will accept Cybertron as their funeral pyre.

There are explosions out in the desert, far above the mountains as the spacebridge flickers. One, then two, and flaming debris plummets downward. She grabs her binoculars, squinting and leaping up to stand on the old couch as she sees...what does she see?

Debris and. Something else. Falling out of control to the desert, to _her_ desert, and even if she'd never worked with the Autobots and fought Decepticons, she'd have recognized those forms as alien.

She runs for her truck, the tools of her trade and whatever else she can fling into the back from the shed before she takes off, and there is cold fire in the very grain of her muscle. It lines her soul in frigid resolve and clicks forgotten knowledge to the forefront of her mind.

Ironhide is dead. But once upon a firing range, he'd taught her how to kill his kind, and Mikeala Banes remembers.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Grimlock and Jazz - Music lesson_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Jazz was mesmerized. "I...seriously? They do that."

He got an irritated sidelong look for the disbelief. "Yes."

Oh, man, why hadn't he gone along to this Lost World island place? Okay, so banishing the Dinobots there in the first place had been a really bad example of the Autobots being bullheaded, ignorant, reactionary - right, well, they didn't like to dwell on it. The Dinobots were _never_ going to let them live down treating an entire Autobot sub-group like dumb animals.

Justifiably so, really. There was nothing quite like being confronted with one's own misdeeds to really grind a point in. Prime still got uncomfortable when confronted with Grimlock's right-angle brand of intelligence during officer meetings. Prowl changed the subject, repeatedly if he had to, just to avoid thinking about the whole issue. Ratchet and Wheeljack made sure to bring it up all the time to make him squirm.

Jazz himself had adjusted fairly quickly to the Dinobots' sky-rocketing learning curve as their programming finally stabilized. He was cool with the dinos. Or so he'd thought, anyway, and now he was being boxed about the audios with how he'd personally marginalized the Dinobots. Yup, dumbaft Head of Special Operations went and shut a whole group of disparate mechs right into a small box of assumptions, then didn't even give them a second thought. Well, paint him red and call him Cliffjumper, because he'd jumped right to a wrongful conclusion without proof.

He'd given some wise-aft comment about how sentience could be measured by its ability to create music, and Grimlock had just put the royal smackdown of unanticipated information down on him. He hadn't _really_ meant to disparage dinosaurs, not really, but he could sort of see how the comment could have been taken wrong considering just who he was talking to. He should have considered that, in fact.

Finding out that dinosaurs had an equivalent of musical sound, however, hadn't even entered considerations.

"Mating calls?" he hazarded.

Another annoyed look. Grimlock was not pleased with the saboteur at the moment. "Territorial marker."

"Ah." Like howler monkeys? Jazz knew he was bouncing. He knew it, and he hated how he looked when he did it, but c'mon. Music! New music! Different music! Magnified floors couldn't have stopped Jazz from bouncing. "So...can you..?"

"Yes."

Oh Primus, oh Primus, oh Primus. Grimlock already had a powerful voice, but Jazz had not once thought about what he sounded like in his dinosaur form! "And the other Dinobots?"

"Yes."

Eeeeeeeeeee! "Will you - ?"

"No."

ARGH.

Jazz turned up the optical lights in his visor and did his best to look like Carly's kitten pleading for dinner. "Please?"

Grimlock snorted and turned to stomp from the room, obviously unaffected by cute, fuzzy animals as channeled by non-fuzzy, not-quite-so-cute Autobots. "No."

Right. Jazz's visor dimmed and narrowed. This would require some planning. _Mission: Get Dinobots To Sing_ was a go.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Blast Off/Mirage - upper caste_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

The other Autobots didn't get it. They watched closely, looking for signs of treason, but that's what they didn't understand. There were no signs. There was no communication, at all. No words exchanged beyond the stilted formal lines required of prisoner and guard, no extra glances that might have had deeper meaning. The words they might have been said were left far in the past, and any fellow feeling had been burned by millions of years of war.

The No-Man's Land of common ground remained, however, war-ravaged as it was.

Mirage simply requested guard duty on the brig whenever Blast Off was captured, and the two mechs...sat there. Blast Off ignored his guard and read the single datapad allowed him - from Jazz, so it never even passed through Mirage's hands. Mirage relaxed at the guard station with rifle at the ready. They never spoke. They never interacted.

Whatever understanding there was between the two mechs, it was at a level no one else could reach.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Ratchet/Wheeljack - a series of extraordinary events_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Through a series of medbay incidents that were small individually and cataclysmic when they snowballed together, Ratchet ended up in the past.

Like anyone who'd ever dealt with the weirdness that was life during the Great War, Ratchet was prepared for this moment. Time travel? Pfft. Even boyscouts prepared for that one.

The rule was simple: don't interfere. Be invisible and nonexistent, because everyone knew that messing about with the past only caused trouble in the present. Ratchet was okay with that rule. In fact, he'd helped pound it into stubborn heads among the Autobots for ages. So noninterference was good, and Ratchet set about to obey that rule religiously.

...with one tiny exception. He just had to.

There was a massive engineering complex on the west side of Iacon, separate from the rest of the Iaconian Science & Technology University campus. It was so huge that Ratchet had no trouble blustering his way past security and disappearing into it. Once he was inside, he simply poked his nose into every construction bay and laboratory until he found the one he was looking for.

"Measurements came out perfect," the young mech inside was saying to his partner when Ratchet finally found him. "Formula seems spot on, and I double-checked the structure. Want to give it a test?"

"Sure. Hold on, somebody's pinging the outer security door." The other mech frowned. "Door's stuck. Can you go open it? I'll set the cameras while you're gone."

"No problem." Ratchet waited around the corner until the footsteps faded, then sent another ping for the _opposite_ security door. Which he'd also glued shut. It was a University campus; pranks happened.

"Arrgh. Okay, okay, I'm coming!" More footsteps, and Ratchet was free and clear to do some very, very small interference. Very small. Just a tweak.

"No more blowing yourself up," the medic muttered as he made a few minor adjustments to the experiment. Little things that would make it better and safer, because Primus knew those things were typically left out by this particularly inventor. Unfortunately, Ratchet was in a hurry, and the jostling made something spin and hum deep inside the machine. "...oops."

There were footsteps coming back up the hall, and Ratchet didn't have _time_, and oh, slag, this hadn't gone how he intended _at all_!

"I don't understand," Wheeljack said forlornly, standing in the wreckage one breem and an extremely colorful explosion later. "We were so careful."

"Maybe we missed a figure in the schematic?" his partner suggested, sounding just as confused.

Hidden in a storage locker that he wasn't entirely sure how he'd wedged himself into, Ratchet clenched his fists and resolved again to save Wheeljack from the engineer's tendency to explode every experiment ever made. Next time, he'd do it right!

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Shibara's Nomformers - "The trick was not minding that it hurt."_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

They already knew they'd take casualties. They'd have to dig deep, use their muscle, push hard, and show their salt. One couldn't cross Kitchentron's Great Table of Dinner without injuries. The war of Condimentbots and Foodcons had gone on too long for any open space to be safe. Fork marks and bites would abound.

The trick was not minding that it hurt.

Hamslaught chewed a piece of gristle and eyed the deceptively organized tableware. Bacon Off had already done an aerial survey; the lay of the Table had been set. There were linen napkin drifts, opaque drinking glasses ready to topple on the unwary, and vast empty platters with no cover available at all. The Great Table seemed empty, yes, but soon...yes, soon, the diners would come.

The Comeaticons would be waiting.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**[A/N: This will likely happen again. It was fun. ]**


	2. Pt 2

**Script Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 2

**Warning to Audience: **Interfacing, torture, gore, rape, and fluff. Seriously, all of that.** Read at your own risk. Here there be robots in ugly sweaters.**

**Show Rating: ** R

**Continuity Stage: **IDW & G1

**Characters: **Starscream, Thundercracker, Ratchet/Prowl, Overlord, Fortress Maximus, Rung/Ambulon, Pharma, Tarn

**Theatre Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Acting Motivation (Prompt): **Kinkmeme and random prompts, this round.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_ Starscream/Thundercracker - "Baby take me back"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"You're being as pathetic as a scientist," Thundercracker snapped, and regretted immediately.

Not because he didn't mean it. Primus on a pogo stick and Skywarp teleporting blind, he meant every word he said. It just really, really wasn't the time to pointedly refer to the brief time he'd actually _known_ Starscream as a scientist. That'd been fresh after his return from losing that giant white shuttle the first time, and stirring those memories after losing him a second time was sure to get a strong reaction. Probably not the one the blue Seeker wanted right now, however.

The mech who whipped around in the corridor to confront him, teeth bared and optics wild, was no Science Academy reject too depressed to walk anywhere straight unless it was to the nearest bar. No, this was the Decepticon Air Commander, who had once upon a time soared through the War Academy like failure wasn't an option. Thundercracker shouldn't have brought up anything that reminded this _current_ mech of the _past_ one. It only brought up bad memories and a point to prove.

"Oh?" Starscream queried sharply. "You want this 'pathetic' **scientist** to remind you why you don't lead the wing?"

Starscream the Drunkard had been a very short phase of the prickly Seeker's life. Mostly because he'd been too busy running ragged the blue mech he was currently backing down the corridor one slow, threatening step at a time. It'd been difficult to continue drinking after a certain time, at least once Thundercracker stopped his half-sparked attempts to escape. To be fair to the blue Seeker, the drunken, depressed scientist who'd first latched onto him had seemed like the kind of wingmate a flyer avoided at all costs. He'd been intrigued even then, but had still restlessly tried to slip away. The fact that Starscream kept _finding_ him again only made him more interested in the feisty, if drunk, red Seeker.

Catching an unattached set of wings while lolling in the gutter had been a stroke of luck, although neither Seeker would confess as to whether that luck was good or bad - or who had caught whom. Keeping those wings had required a great deal of effort and attention. Hence why Thundercracker's acquaintance with Starscream the Scientist had been so very brief. Designing and placing the tiny trackers on the blue mech had required sobriety, and once Starscream dried up enough, he'd tackled the task of making them into a wing formidable enough to attract a third. The scientist had been buried under fierce, proprietary skill-learning and, eventually, entrance into the War Academy.

Starscream never stayed depressed long. There were always new projects to obsess over.

Recognizing the look stealing the last of the pout from his wingleader's face, Thundercracker turned and unashamedly fled that obsession.

He wouldn't get far.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**_Ratchet/Prowl - "topping from the bottom"_**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**Warning: tactile interfacing.**

"Yes...like that. Mm. Harder." Ratchet smiled, letting his head loll back between his upper arms. The nips turned to chewing as teeth dug in. "Good, Prowl. You're learning."

"Thank you," the tactician said against his tire, mouth never leaving the rubber. Because he had learned. His optics stayed on his work without straying. Ratchet hadn't told him he could stop, after all.

The medic's hips slowly rose up, leisurely grinding against nothing. His back arched, pressing his chest against an invisible partner. There was no hurry. The gradual swell of arousal through his circuitry built without urgency; just an inexorable surge that ebbed less with every gentle bite into the rubber. The air was cold on his plating, and it felt good. His joints steamed faintly as his frame struts conducted the building heat from core systems, and his vents drew in a long, slow breath. Air billowed over his heated internals in a ripple of comparative chill, adding another flicker of sensation to the mix.

With his hands bound like this, he could only take. He couldn't give. He was a medic; giving was what he did. Here, however. Here and now, he could do nothing but take.

He flexed his vents as wide as they'd go and let his fans go on full. Another cool rush of air flickered over his internals, biting sharp and almost burning. "Lick the rims."

Prowl obeyed, but he took his time getting there. His mouth - teeth, tongue, lips, even the hot cloud of breath pushed out and pulled immediately back in as if to tease and taste and touch any cranny too small to touch - explored every groove of the tire he was working on until he reached the rim. Obedience, of course, was a given, but thoroughness was a reward in and of itself. Meticulous attention to detail had brought him this far in the war, and he could devote no less effort to this battleground.

Yet there was a relief in not being in control, in surrendering the planning to someone else. In Ratchet's strategy, Prowl was only a pawn. A piece to be moved and used however his controller wished. Freedom from responsibility relaxed a knot of tension he carried everywhere, and his doors haltingly eased downward a bit more after every order.

He was a tactician; control and planning was what he did. Here, however. Here and now, he could do nothing but obey the commands given him.

The medic's engine rumbled, a deep thrum of pleasure. Prowl shut off his optics and devoted even the scraps of attention and energy otherwise wasted on sight to laving the grooves around every rim until the high, sweet rasp of sleek metal-on-metal filled the room. He closed his lips around the recessed lug nuts and sucked, tongue tracing the cracks and probing as if to turn them. His vents pulled in air, and he exhaled it deliberately over his engine, letting the steam cloud the silvery metal and bead tiny droplets of moisture on the rubber.

"Good." Ratchet crooned as he shifted his hips. "You're doing so good. Just like that, mmm."

Prowl knelt between his spread legs, neck outstretched and head cocked to one side to reach the foot propped against his right shoulder. One hand cradled Ratchet's lower leg, helping support it as he lavished kissed all the way around the circumference of the rim currently getting its share of attention. The Autobot Second's other hand was lowered to the floor, occupied in rolling the tire on Ratchet's other ankle. His thumb dragged down the treads, catching in the tracks and popping loose in a steady _thuck-thuck_ that had the tire not quite spinning. The motion wasn't hurried enough for that. No, he just rolled it languidly, letting his hand cup the rubber with tender care that promised he'd attend to it momentarily. It was not forgotten. It was at the forefront of his thoughts, lined up neatly behind his next idea for the tire his mouth was on right now. He was already thinking how he would to slide his lips along the rim. That other tire was only an order away from what was owed it, his hand assured with a pat and lingering stroke of one finger around the rim.

Ratchet's wrists twisted slightly, hands curling with the urge to touch. To…_give_. The medic pulled on his bound wrists again, fighting the need. It ramped up behind his arousal, undeniable and deeper-rooted that the lust. He _needed_. To give. This was so one-sided, and his palms ached to return the attention as a sudden nagging urgency undermined his desire. He swept scans over Prowl and came up with results that had his medical programming sternly kicking him in the back of the cortex. Prowl was barely running warm.

That was _wrong_, and it rattled him as physically as a punch to the chest. It jolted him painfully like an electric shock under his armor. "Prowl, let me go. I have to - "

The Autobot executive officer was on his feet in a flash, but not to unbind Ratchet. No, he was standing up to reach for Ratchet's bound wrists and hold them firmly in his hands. "Ratchet, no," he said sternly, leaned forward to press his mouth against the side of the medic's helm. It was less seduction than reassurance. "That isn't you. Remember."

It wasn't him. It was his programming. His programming insisting he should give, not ever take.

"Let me take care of you," Prowl coaxed, pushing his thumbs into the medic's tight fists. They made tiny circles on Ratchet's palms, massaging and trying to urge him to stand down. To open to accept, for once, instead of constantly give away. "You know it's necessary. You told me so. You've trained me on this. I know what to do, and you're right here observing me. Let me do this for you." His lips pressed again to the medic's helm. A little more was needed. He could feel that ambulance engine sputter anxiously against his chest. "Doctor's orders, remember? You told me I had to let go of my responsibilities. This is for me. This is for me, Ratchet. Supervise patient treatment by letting me assist you."

So logical, but it was convoluted rationalization, too. It was a necessary half-turn of the facts to sooth hard-coded programming. Prowl was here to deal with something every commander had to know about his medical staff, because mechs could only give so much before they were left hollowed out and empty. Burnt out husks, guttering into suicide statistics as despair replaced spent passion because no one gave the medical staff anything to replace what they recklessly, compassionately sacrificed to keep the Autobots alive. The frontliners died in battle, giving it their all, but the medics died by their own hands after doing the same. They required some loving care all their own, but getting them to _accept_ it was the hard part.

And it wasn't something that could be delegated to a subordinate when the medic in question was the Autobot Chief Medical Officer.

But Ratchet could get loose any time he wanted. This wasn't something that could be forced. Every unit commander knew how to carefully unweave the coding that left Autobot medics stressed to the breaking point. It couldn't be torn apart. It could be hacked, it could be tricked, but ultimately, that would only snarl things further as combat programming backlashed to cause worse strain yet. The only way to pick apart the tangle of medical programming versus personal needs was to convince the core personality strained by the conflict that there was a way to walk the narrow line between them.

Peacefully, because struggling would bring out the combat programming already at right-angles with medical programming. Both demanded control. One would lash out if it felt threatened. One wanted to sacrifice itself.

It took a deft touch to balance the programs and revitalize the mech caught up in them.

It took understanding to surrender control even when tying someone up.

Ratchet _slammed_ his head back and ex-vented forcefully. Behind offline optics, his mind railed at the directives that hammered _need to give_ in throbbing, headachy pulses into his cortex. The lips pressed against the side of his helm moved until a slick tongue ran over the lines of his helm, up to his chevron, and began to give it dainty little licks. A distraction, yes; a seduction, yes; a patient necessity? Who was the patient? Who was being treated?

The licks gained pressure as worry revved the medic's engine. Lips ran along the top edge of his chevron, up to the point, then repeated the motion with the tip of a moist, hot tongue. The scans still showed that Prowl wasn't running hot, but they also showed that his systems were calm. Low levels of anxiety. Fluid pressures finally dropping into acceptable ranges. Fuel tanks full and systems purring tranquilly. All the nonstop weight bearing down on the Autobot Second were temporarily on hold, here and now.

The facts cleared Ratchet's head enough to get ahold of himself. Yes. The need...it wasn't him. It was _part_ of him, but not what _he_ wanted. What _he_ wanted wasn't a bad thing. _Wanting_ was not wrong.

He was allowed to take. Sometimes, Ratchet just had to be reminded of that fact.

And, well, sometimes a logical loophole had to be found.

Prowl needed this as much as Ratchet did.

"Give my hands something to feel," the medic demanded harshly. "**Now.**"

Prowl obediently abandoned his chevron and began mouthing the nearest of the medic's sensitive hands. He let go of the other hand and focused on unfolding just one. Ratchet's hand resisted, still trying unconsciously to fight accepting when - no. Ratchet heaved, body bucking protest against that entire line of thought. The fingers unclenched, seeking to give, and a cross whine came from the medic when the cuffs prevented him from reaching for the other mech. Prowl blew hot air over the trapped fingers and lapped at them without getting close enough to be stroked in return.

When it seemed that Ratchet had wrestled his coding down a bit, the executive officer bent close enough for his cheek to be touched before nipping reproachfully at further attempts. He opened his mouth and gathered the fingers in, rubbing his tongue broadly over their undersides. They curled into his mouth and ran over his teeth, and he sucked gently on them. His tongue found the joints, pushed into the chinks where tools unfolded, licked at fingertips and knuckles. A growled command had him switching to the other hand, opening it from the clenched fist it'd tightened into so that he could lap slowly up the palm. Long, slow licks to relax and care for and shower worshipful attention on someone who deserved it but couldn't accept it unless it was almost forced upon him.

"Tell me," Prowl breathed against that palm, seeking direction. "Tell me what to do."

And Ratchet guided him.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**_Fortress Maximus - "harmless"_**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**  
**Warning: outright rape and torture. This was something I tried to write as physically fast as possible.**  
**

Rung called them harmless fantasies. Frag dreams: the things the mind thought of when the body needed release. The mind still knew right from wrong, but sometimes the body desired. And it was alright, he said, hand soft on Fortress Maximus' arm as if he didn't dare apply any pressure. It was the first time the warden of Garrus-9 had outright asked his advice on something, and even though the psychotherapist knew the topic was a delaying tactic to dodge more questions until the end of the session, he still answered.

_"Our bodies gather charge in different ways, and often in ways we don't wish." A wry smile twisted the slender mech's thin lips. Fort Max saw it and wondered. "Imagining what you wish to release it does no harm. It's a fantasy. Some fantasies can be given form, but not all." He leaned forward, eyeridges asking the question about just what his patient was dreaming about that he was so uncomfortable. But Rung didn't press verbally; not about this. "There's no shame in using your imagination, Max."_

There was. Fortress Maximus hunched over the edge of his too-small berth and marinated in it.

Yet some part of him had fastened on the psychotherapist's assurance. The little mech was millions of years older than him. As stubborn as Fort Max was when it came to acknowledging the therapist might be right about opening up about what had happened at Garrus-9, the depths of his mind wanted to believe Rung about this. No shame. No need for embarrassment or humiliation. It was just a harmless fantasy that never had go beyond the door of this room, that didn't have to last a second beyond what it took to get release.

He glanced around the room, licking his denta. The camera was blocked, which he was sure would drive Red Alert mad, but Fortress Maximus wasn't the type who could screw under surveillance. Even - no. His glossa ran around his mouth again, less nerves than an automatic gesture being in a coma hadn't stopped. The medics at Delphi had done a good job. His denta were all in place again. He'd only been missing three from the left side, but every absent denta had held significance. He wondered what they'd thought of that: his perfectly unharmed mouth, but for those three pulled-out denta. Everything else had been worked over, pried at and raked over and mutilated, but not his mouth.

He didn't want to think about what they'd thought while repairing his interfacing equipment. His internal threads had been stripped. It'd been a long and painful process of repeated violation by too wide a diameter that'd - why was he even _thinking_ about that?

The warden glanced around the room again, gaze lingering on the console. He'd turned the communication frequency on and left the volume on low. He couldn't tell who was talking, or about what. The voices murmured erratically, which was what he wanted.

_The room was never silent._

Shame slowed him, but not as much as he kind of wished it would. He pulled his legs up on the berth and rolled until he was up on his knees. His glossa ran another automatic circuit around his denta, probing the places there'd been holes, and he tried to feel more shame than sick arousal for caving this way. His body wanted this, but did he really need to give in to it? It seemed he did.

On his knees, he retracted his interface panel and unfocused his optics. It added up in his mind: the distant sound of voices, the dim lighting of the room, kneeling back on his heels this way. The perverted desire burning in his circuits brought his screw turning out of its tap. That already was more than he'd managed in the washracks listening to Rodimus's clever fingers coax Ultra Magnus into forgetting every footnote ever memorized. That _should_ have been hot enough - frag, who didn't have half an optic locked on their captain's aft at all times? - but it hadn't been.

Fort Max stroked his fingers up between his own threads, and it wasn't Rodimus' flirty colors that ran through his mind's optics. He wished it was.

Fantasy. Harmless fantasy. Most of a memory, but whatever his body needed to get rid of the charge, right?

His screw finally extended all the way, teased out as far as he could manage like this, and he let his head fall back. One hand worked the helix, petting between the threads and trying to force the turning. His interface systems whined, grinding angrily the longer he stalled this way, and Fort Max groaned. Of anyone, of any _place_ his charge could fixate on, why this? There were a thousand reasons why this was a bad idea, a million reasons his hate should eradicate lust, but still his body didn't listen to reason. The quick, vivid mental images roused his systems no matter how he tried to purge them. His imagination clung to Rung's assurance, and his body just didn't care.

He lowered himself grudgingly, joints hissing. Down, subjugated by nothing, bending before no one but the shadows in the corners and his secret fantasy. Lower and lower until his chest pressed to the berth and his aft was the highest part of him. His knees spread

_feet carelessly kicked apart before the nails were pounded through, and he'd only just managed not to scream_

until the blunt tip of his screw rested against the berth's surface. That felt entirely too good. The slight burn in his hip cables from his knees being positioned this way felt even better. He grunted quietly as his screw gave a turn, and his hips swayed in a small circle that worked the tip against the berth. It wasn't someone's tap, but the small spot of contact had his optics flickering already. He hesitated, scrunching his face against the berth as shame fought a squirming battle in his gut with the blaze of building charge, then reluctantly extended his arms up underneath his shoulder treads. His hands slid up the berth, depriving him of their support completely. His wrists crossed

_one nail through them both, angled just enough that he had no leverage to pull it up no matter how hard he strained_

but kept restlessly moving. His systems heated rapidly, something about the debased position revving his engine even as his mind tried to block the hot rush of lust. His hips bucked slightly, working the tip of his screw in tiny, blissful circles on the berth, yet it wasn't enough. Not _quite_. Something was missing, and he was ashamed that this couldn't be enough. Why did his body need so much re-creation? Why, if Rung was right, couldn't this stay a mental exercise? A harmless fantasy that could stay hidden in his head. He could stare into space and daydream while his fingers squeezed between his threads and his screw drilled into his tight fist over and over until the charge finally tripped.

Why couldn't that be it?! Over and done with - but the charge wasn't going anywhere. It was still building. It still had his hips flexing and a muted sound of shuddering lust trying to escape his throat. It just wasn't bleeding off. It kept climbing higher without discharging, because it lacked something.

Blind with the heavy curl of pleasure snagging his hips in a twisting thrust against the berth, he reached over and fumbled on the berthside table. He found something suitable after knocking a couple things to the floor. It was a box for things. Polishing cloths, maybe. Who cared.

He put it under his chin, propping his head up at an incredibly awkward, almost painful angle, and crossed his wrists far up on the berth again. Yes. Yes, this.

Fortress Maximus couldn't muffle his moan, and his hips jerked. His screw's turning picked up, drilling an indent into the berth surface. The blunt tip rubbed into it, lapping waves of indomitable, sick and filthy pleasure up the inside of his thighs in small surges of charge.

His glossa licked, and he chose to pretend there were missing denta. Just one. It'd…it'd gotten worse after the second one, and the sickness in his tanks swelled too far if he thought about that. So he kept his chin up on the box, his limbs down on the berth as if they were nailed there, and let himself sink into the memory. Later, he'd hate himself for how his screw spun to it like a fantasy. Later, not now.

_He wasn't allowed to look away. The gag in his mouth kept him from shouting protests, and the nails kept him down. Nothing prevented him from shutting off his optics, but his mechs deserved this much from him. He couldn't stop their suffering, but he could at least witness it._

_The Autobot on his knees before Overlord had suffered much already, and Fortess Maximus cringed inside when the Decepticon pushed the used guard away. "You know what I want, Fortress," came that silken, liquid voice. It sounded almost kind. I'dt sounded the exact same when Overlord had ordered the guard to open his mouth and suck him. It hadn't even changed pitch when the poor mech refused, but the warlord's lips had curled in a pleased smile. The smile had stayed while he picked up a pair of pliers and set about making the guard want to obey. _

_The Autobot at Overlord's feet now had no denta left, and wide strips of upper palate had been peeled out of his mouth before Overlord had pretended to notice the screamed pleas. They'd been shrieked for an hour before then. _

_Fort Max steeled himself and snarled a refusal behind the gag. _

_"Oh?" Again with the pleased smile. His refusal had been predicted. From the smile, probably anticipated._

Charge snaked up and down the rib crests as Fort Max's screw turned. He ground the tip against the berth faster, the friction less important that what was happening in his head. His fingers opened and closed, helplessly wriggling even though there was nothing holding him down, and his optics dropped to a dim, unseeing light. His hips hitched up slightly, pushing and dropping in miniscule thrusts that were the best he could manage in this position.

He _could_ move, but he wouldn't. The imagined restraints made the bottom drop out of his tanks and a fire lick at the root of his screw, tracing fingers of aching pleasure up it in a slowly twisting spiral. The box dug under Fortress Maximus' chin, and the warden's glossa worked inside his mouth, licking obsessively at his own denta.

_"Then perhaps you'll give me what else I want." The pliers were picked up and examined, apparently uncaring of the dripping trail of vital fluids meandering down his wrist from them. The guard huddled on the ground mewled, completely terrorized by the sight, but Fort Max turned the gag against his missing denta and swallowed before jerking his head as much as he could in denial. "I'd say it's a pity, but I enjoy this too much to regret your willfulness." The smile stretched wide. "That's not to say you won't."_

His hips squirmed, dropping and bucking until the first narrow thread caught on the berth cover, then rotating upward to scrub the sensitive upper half over it again. His optics blindly watched a fast-forwarded memory of the first guard put through Overlord's terrible game. The mech had sobbed and begged as the massive pistol rested against the top of his head and Overlord shoved his screw back into the empty hole of the tortured Autobot's mouth. Overload, it had been promised, would be met with a single shot.

No hope. No escape. Just using Fort Max's mech for a sadistic frag to punish the warden for refusing. Afterward, the corpse had been kicked to the side, and Overlord had laughed at the warden's helpless fury. Then came the pliers, and an extraction.

And repeat.

_He couldn't surrender. Aequitas was more important to the Autobots than any garrison, no matter that they were his. _

_That didn't mean he didn't want to just give in as Overlord purred his honeyed lies to the disfigured guard. "Make him overload, and I will allow you to leave this room. Understood?" Oh, he'd be allowed to leave the room. In pieces. Fort Max had already seen that promise come true. "Good. Then get to work."_

_Obedience won nothing from this Decepticon, not until he won everything, and only absolute conquest would be enough. Fortress Maximus could not allow that, no matter how high Overlord kept setting the price of defiance. He braced himself to pay that price yet again._

_A whimper of apology came from behind the nailed-down warden, and he yelled furiously behind the gag as the smaller Autobot scooted between his knees. A head nudged under him, the top of a helm wedged up against his belly, and then poor guard set about licking and sucking Fort Max's screw out. It did not, shamefully enough, take too much effort. It spiraled out, and that's when the real horror began for the warden._

Primus, he wished this wasn't firing him up this much. His hips shuddered in tiny motions, more circling in place than making individual thrusts, and his screw turned and turned. The feel of a glossa stroking against his threads was a vivid memory. A vivid, gross memory of pushing against damaged stripes of raw wounds on one side while a frantic glossa worked on the other. He remembered the gaping, hollow place where denta should have been, how they _should_ have scraped into the roots between threads, and but they hadn't. They'd been pulled out to the tune of screamed, pathetic pleas and had been scattered on the floor of the room that had never been silent. The contented rumble of Overlord's engine echoed out of Fort Max's memories, and the stuttered whine of distress from the guard who'd been trying so hard underneath him.

It had all somehow made the soft, continuous motion of lips all the worse because it'd felt so fragging _good_. That skyrocketing pleasure hadn't faded. The memory still had him gasping in lust more powerful than humiliation or hatred.

He was a monster. This wasn't a harmless fantasy. This was bucking and quivering to a memory, and yet he couldn't stop

_thrusting against the hot suck and building charge. Overlord couldn't make his tap react no matter how he fingered the warden's threads, but a screw's reactions were far more involuntary. That's what made this so very terrible. The drive to finish was physical pressure that had Fortress Maximus keening as his limbs twisted desperately against the nails. His neck ached, his wrists shrieked pain, and his hips were pumping into the guard's frenzied mouth. His screw turned, trying to catch internal threads that weren't there, and the lack drove the charge higher. It'd be a painful shock into the smaller Autobot's jaw when he finally discharged; there were reasons that oral wasn't very popular. _

_But that wasn't what had Fort Max bellowing protest into the gag. Overlord had put down the pliers in front of him - a promise for later, for another denta - and held up his pistol with a sinister grin._

_The Decepticon walked around behind the pinned warden and waited. They both knew for what._

_The hopeful, despairing guard kept sucking. The hips bucking into his face blocked his view of the pistol pointed at his spark._

Fortress Maximus' hands flattened to the berth, fingers clawing. His back arched up as the overload snapped, at long last, over his systems.

When he could unlock his joints again, his optics had reset so he could see more than static. Trembling with the aftershocks of pleasure, he nudged the box under his chin aside, and then the warden hid his face between his arms. The fantasy had driven him to the peak, past the point of caring that it'd gone beyond imagining and down into wallowing in memory. He couldn't even pretend it'd been a dream he'd climaxed to.

Even so, it hadn't been as good as the real thing. Not…not even close.

He tried not to think about it, but trying not to think about it made him think instead about next time. He burrowed his face into the berth, muffling a pained groan because he already knew, loathe himself though he did, that there'd be a next time.

Rung had been wrong. It hadn't been harmless.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**_Ambulon/Rung - "repainting"_**

**[* * * * *]**

**Warning: tactile interfacing.**

* * *

_The small hands aren't delicate. They were not made for hard labor, but neither were they made to be useless. They are simply frame structures from a career that has never called for a rebuild into tools of war. They are light and not meant for combat, but they're not meant to be coddled, either. They're just…hands._

_They used to be common on Cybertron. Now they are unusual._

_Their rarity makes their touch far more erotic than Ambulon had thought possible. The task they perform is mundane, and they make it - and him - feel incredibly special._

"He **what**?" Ratchet was the master of his domain. When the master fumbled a tray of tools and spilled them over the counter, then his subordinate had better take a second look at what had just been said.

Ambulon took that second look. He took a third. It remained totally normal to him. "He's offered to touch up my paint," he stated again after a moment of analyzing the sentence from every angle. Pharma and First Aid had helped him repaint several times. It'd been one of the few activities any of them could tolerate doing together outside of work on Delphi, and like shoveling snow or clearing accumulated ice off the landing pads on the roof, it'd only been tolerable because it'd been a necessity _for_ work. Pharma had considered it professionalism; First Aid had collected it as favors toward overlooking the times he wandered off to indulge his stupid Wreckers fantasies.

Ambulon just considered it a pain in the aft, but he was resigned to it by now. His paint nanites wouldn't accept reprogramming unless it came through the dominate gestalt controls. Since that was an impossibility because of that whole switching factions thing, that required an outer coating of paint. That kept chipping off, of course, because paint on metal eventually wore away. Requiring yet more repainting.

It was an endless cycle of futility, and Ambulon had been somewhat relieved that someone else had offered to help for once. Things between he and First Aid were a little awkward at the moment. Delphi stood between them, still.

Ratchet had been pushing them both into working and reporting events separately until they got over their issues. That'd meant a lot of speaking with Ultra Magnus, Ratchet himself, Blaster, and Red Alert. Also Rung, but only because the little psychotherapist had offered to put together a psychological profile for Pharma's descent into madness. The orange Autobot had made it clear that he would not consider either of the Delphi Clinic medical professionals as patients unless they felt they needed his services.

Leading indirectly to this offer, in fact. An offer that had Ratchet gaping, apparently.

_His body twists up the couch, starting at his knees and rolling up his body until his head tosses back into the cushioning. He isn't trying to escape. He isn't trying to press into the hands. He doesn't want the first option, and knows better than to try the second. It isn't that he doesn't want more of those hands on him, but pressing his still-tacky paint to something will only mess up the new paint. No, he's honestly trying to stay still, but oh. Ohhh. That is more difficult than it seems._

_"Is this alright?" the thin voice asks, as it's asked every time its owner started on a new body part. The gentle, tickling scratch of the micro-sander working down the inside of his left arm pauses politely._

_Ambulon's vents hitch and ease a fraction further open. "Yes," he breathes. The stripped, carefully prepared areas all over his body tingle, and the pricking to his network has only climbed higher as paint has been applied. Yes, this is more than alright._

_It's been a slow process of removal and application. He is covered in hot spots. His sensors shouldn't even be able to sense the missing layer of pigment, but he seriously believes the heat laid down by those hands are lighting him up like a hundred small fires lit directly on his plating. It is becoming harder to control how he squirms every time the sander is taken up to grind away the old paint and reveal the arousal glowing underneath. Every chipped surface is left warm and wanting, like Ambulon is being peeled out of his plating until his naked spark will be poured out and tenderly touched into a moaning, writhing ball of pure, rampant desire._

_The sander lifts away, and a hand - just a hand, a normal Cybertronian hand without the taint of war - wipes the dust away. The feel of the mech sitting beside him comes through it: endlessly patient, a tad worried for Ambulon's continued comfort, a little nervous for his own sake, but mostly just open and receptive without betraying anything more than surface concerns. It's an electromagnetic field as controlled as any Ambulon has ever felt, and as dense as history. _

_Given who it belongs to, that makes sense. It makes as much sense as the meticulous attention to detail that has the ward manager shivering in effort to stay still. The sanding with the micro-machine is done with experience even Ratchet doesn't have, and wiping the dust by hand takes patience the old medic certainly doesn't have. _

_Patience, and a peculiar type of intimacy._

"Have you **seen**his model collection?" Ratchet said, face less dumbfounded now that he'd had a moment to process what he'd heard.

"Yes?" It would be hard to miss. Rung's office was filled with the bitty ship models. Ambulon didn't collect material things himself, but he'd been impressed by the level of detail in the models. Each ship was reproduced down to incredibly small internal features visible through the windows, and even working cargo bay doors. "It's...extensive," he said when Ratchet seemed to be waiting for a reply. "I'd think it'd be difficult to haul them around without damaging them."

The older medic nodded as if that were the point. "They get damaged a lot, but he's reassembled them from scrap more than once. You couldn't tell to look at them, could you?" Ratchet shook his head, admiration and rueful dismay in one. "I've never seen anyone put so much effort into something so useless before, but I have to admit, it fits his personality. Eh?" Ambulon was trying not to look like he didn't have a clue what his superior was talking about, but it must have leaked into his expression. "He's rather obsessive about caring for others, you know. He redirects it to those models instead of pressing himself on patients."

That stuck in Ambulon's head. "Obsessive..."

"Yeah." The lingering shock and a hint of envy were in Ratchet's optics when he looked at the smaller mech. "When Rung makes an offer to retouch your paint, he's not talking about an hour of spray-painting and a half-sparked buffing. You'd better clear your day and fuel up beforehand, because - ah. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it." Those optics turned away, reminded that they were medics talking about their resident civilian adjutant. He was a colleague, not someone to be tossed crudely into the rumor mill.

Not when Ambulon's mind could make up all the fantasies it needed without outside help, anyway. It hadn't even occurred to him that the offer could be anything but a courtesy between professionals. There wasn't any reason that Rung would possibly make an offer to do…more. Was there? "Why would you think that at all?" the ward manager asked stiffly.

Ratchet's optics turned back for half a second, checking him over head to toe in a way that had Ambulon straightening in reflex. Right. Horrible flaking paintjob; nothing to be self-conscious about, really, but that didn't make him less embarrassed before he caught himself. "He likes projects that help without involving the complications of patient treatment. I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it, but you're, hmm. Something of a perfect candidate for it." One side of the Chief Medical Officer's lips tugged up in a mischievous grin. "Lucky you."

_The sticky cloth wraps around one forefinger, and it chases the dust away. Then another cloth, silkier to catch the finer particles, strokes down Ambulon's forearm. That's it, and blazing heat pours from fingertips to spark in a crackling flood of electricity as circuit breakers trip. It's an overload in miniature, and it's the fifth one he's suffered since firm orders and those deceptively normal hands arranged him on the couch. The ex-Decepticon cannot stop how he cries out, brow furrowed and body jolting. _

_Somehow, and don't ask him why, the order to stay still lest he mar new paint has only made the tiny overloads more intense. He's not complaining, but he doesn't exactly understand. He's never pegged himself for the submissive type. Mere tactile contact shouldn't be riling him up this much, but it's hard to deny how responsive he's become to the slightest touch._

_A pause, and that history-dense field dips closer to sample his emotional state. It'd be impolite to check on the circuit-status of a patient, but this was definitely not that kind of a session. Finding only heady lust and the strange, attention-gorged happiness that's been fueling Ambulon since he's laid down on the couch, the inquiring field withdraws again. The closely-held energy permits the ward manager to feel a pleased wash of emotion before it goes, however. His painter evidently enjoys watching him writhe with pleasure under attention._

_The dazed medic forces his optics online and his arms to stay above his head. The absent expression above him says that its owner is concentrating heavily on preparing the latest spot on the larger Autobot's arm. Yet Ambulon's blinking afterglow and vague confusion is picked up on effortlessly. One hand immediately frees itself to run the fingertips along his face, the thumb tracing up to smooth under a yellow optic. _

_Ambulon's unformed unease settles back into the odd thrill of being the absolute center of someone's world for once. The calm, focused field gives him one more reassuring nudge before the hand goes back to sanding and sweeping. _

_How had he not immediately sensed the aura of age held closely to Rung's chest? One touch, and he had the feeling that the psychotherapist had seen everything and judged nothing. He'd melted to relaxation under that neutral regard, and the mech's confident hands were sculpting that trust into something astonishing. And hot. _

_The hands, and the paint brushes._

Ambulon fidgeted outside Rung's door, still wondering just how to phrase this. He wasn't looking for an attachment? He hadn't been aware Rung looked at him that way? He wasn't comfortable forming a romantic relationship with a colleague? Dating wasn't something he wanted to try, ever? Thanks, but no thanks, but could he still have the psychotherapist's help with repainting him anyway?

This was guaranteed to be an exceedingly awkward conversation.

He pinged the door chime and sucked in a deep cycle of air, hoping to pull in some inspiration. Dealing with Autobot emotional sensibilities, even after all this time, didn't come easily to him. Blunt bludgeoning or subtle manipulation was so much more the Decepticon way. Either one tended to offend Autobots in a way he couldn't afford, however, not on a new assignment. Ultra Magnus had made it clear that he thought Ambulon to be a potential reoffender because of his past, well, faction. Red Alert was all but venting down his ex-Decepticon neck. Risking offense to one of the few mechs he thought of as a potential ally was making him jittery.

Thus, the awkward. There had to be an inoffensive way to diffuse this situation, but frag him to the Pit if he knew what it was.

The door slid open. "Come in," Rung greeted him with a tilt of those silly brow-ridges.

Ambulon looked at the slender orange mech with the optics of someone who hadn't previously looked at this person as potential interface, and - um. Okay, that was a little unnerving. He'd never thought about the frametypes he liked. He had a _career_. As Pharma and Ratchet had proved, it was either career or significant other. There weren't many medics who could pull off both at once. Emotional entanglements were distasteful, and he was too impatient for more than a casual glance at an attractive mech. Self-servicing was done quick and quiet, just getting it over and done with.

He had to manually shut off his fans, now. Rung would never win a beauty competition, but dear Primus did he have presence. As soon as Ambulon entered the room, it was like being transported from the hectic life of Rodimus' ragtag ship crew into an office suite in some stable psychotherapy practice. Under any other circumstances, the ward manager would find that quite calming.

Instead, the presence of the tiny ship models and the painting equipment laid out on the table beside the couch were revving him up.

"I'm not interested in a relationship at this time," he blurted out, panicking more than he'd admit to later. He caught himself as soon as it was out, covering a grimace at how offensively blunt that had probably sounded. "I. I mean to say that while I appreciate the, er, offer, I would prefer to keep our dealings on a professional basis." There. That sounded complimentary enough to take the edge off the rejection, hopefully.

Rung gave him a puzzled look that morphed into gentle amusement. "Ambulon, ah. I'm a psychotherapist. My most frequently repeated piece of advice is that clear communication is a key point. I follow that advice as a matter of course to prevent misunderstandings like this."

In other words, his offer to touch up Ambulon's paint had been exactly that: an offer to touch up paint. Nothing more. Nothing less.

…so this was what death by mortification felt like.

There was also an echo of unreasonable anger. So it hadn't crossed Rung's mind that Ambulon was frag-worthy?

That was backward logic, but it didn't prevent Ambulon from straightening ramrod taut and clearing his vocalizer. He cursed himself for it the second it happened because it made him sound like a pretentious fool - Pharma's words, painful because they were accurate - but did his best to sound as formal as he could. Served him right for presuming that anyone could be interested in him. "I apologize for assuming. I. I was led to…reconsider your offer in light of," his optics flicked to the models, "what have turned out to be nothing but crass rumors." He took a step back, retreating toward the door. He would not _run_ like a scared retrorat. Although he had every intention of hiding in his quarters for the rest of the day and refusing to even speak to Ratchet if this subject ever, _ever_ came up. Primus spare his spark if First Aid every found out. The nurse positively thrived off of gossip. "Perhaps it would be best if I left and - "

"Wait," Rung soothed, one fine orange hand outstretched as if to calm a shy 'bot. Which was absurd, really. Ambulon? Shy? _Hmmph_. "I meant no disrespect or offense by that, Ambulon. I honestly had not considered you might be interested in more than an opportunity to converse while repairing your paintjob. I hope you might stay to do that still, but if you find the situation too uncomfortable, then I do apologize."

Was the smaller Autobot _apologizing_ to him for Ambulon's own stupid blunder? "For what?" the ward manager asked suspiciously, wondering if he was missing something.

Those overly-expressive brow-ridges lifted in the centers, giving the rattled medic a disarmingly earnest look. "For making you feel threatened," Rung said, and the larger mech somehow managed to stand yet straighter.

"I am not - " Ambulon started to lash out, but the psychotherapist was giving him a small smile that was both weary and rueful. Defensive much, yeah? "You." A blast of air ex-vented in a rush that did nothing to clear the ward manager's scrambled thoughts. "I. Yes, fine. You are…correct, Rung." The thought resisted being pinned down, but Rung only waited with that peaceful patience that practically permeated the office. There was something strangely nice about knowing this mech had been the one to detail all the models on the shelves in here. This was not a mech who would rush him.

"I - do find you…attractive," Ambulon said at last, looking away from those compassionate, nonjudgmental optics. "Physically. I hardly know you in any other way." Well, that didn't sound horribly awkward at all. No, wait, it totally did. Oops. "I let it affect how I saw the situation, and I am. Uncertain. How to handle interaction with you. Now." Other than stumbling over words and hiding behind formalities, that was.

He felt a fool.

The psychotherapist watched him for a moment longer, making sure he was finished. "I am not actively searching for a relationship," he said when the medic glaring a hole in the wall kept his mouth shut, "but I am not adverse to the idea of acting on our physical attraction to each other. Would you consider sitting down and discussing a solution to our mutual attraction?"

Yellow optics popped wide. Shocked, Ambulon whipped his head around to stare and got a full dose of the sweetest smile he'd ever seen.

_Rung puts aside the sander and the dust cloths. Wearing that same expression of pure concentration, he picks up the smallest paintbrush. Not an airbrush, but a real, honest-to-Primus paintbrush. Ambulon has never been painted by one of those until now. The bristles cause a hint of friction as they stroke paint onto his plating, and every brushstroke rouses his systems in a way he couldn't have expected. He doesn't care to fight the feeling. The brushstrokes, like the small civilian hands, are doing things to his body that he couldn't have predicted when this started. _

_And that is just fine. _

_Drugged by pleasure and attention, Ambulon isn't aware of how relaxed he's become until his personal painter pauses in uncapping the white paint. The can is set aside, and Rung shifts beside him until an amused, pleased EM field caresses his chest as the orange mech leans over him. The ward manager's slack mouth is slowly captured. Rung's lips unhurriedly meld to his as if gathering the larger mech's overload-melted thoughts back into together enough to realize there is a kiss going on and participation is indeed encouraged. Under-metal circuitry sparks energy off each other until a connection establishes through the inside of their lower lips, and charge snaps between their mouths. Ambulon shudders on the berth when Rung murmurs words lost into the cycling electricity._

_A tongue ventures into the circuit, breaking it before it can build into another of those delicious localized overloads. Ambulon offlines his optics and doesn't mind a bit, because Rung has gently taken to nibbling on his upper lip in a way that leaves Ambulon helplessly mouthing at the therapist's lips. A thumb comes down on the center of his own lower lip, and the cloud of heated interest that'd been soaking into Ambulon sternly backs up the implied order: stay still and let Rung enjoy him. The ward manager moans around the thumb at the order. He tries not to whimper as well when his obedience earns immediate reward. That tongue begins exploring the inside of his upper lip. Since it's absorbed the backlash of electricity, it's highly charged and doing things to his temperature gauge via languid back-and-forth licks over the chemical receptors tucked where lip met dental moulds. Those sensors inform him that Rung tastes like midgrade and foreign metal. It's such a _normal_ flavor that he shudders again. _

_The kiss breaks as leisurely as it began. Ambulon's lips stay in the shape of it for a moment longer, half-hoping for more and half-stunned by what they've already gotten. Hazy yellow optics blink up at Rung, who smiles that sweet smile again and dips down to let him feel it. It tastes as lovely as it looks, for all that Rung is neither pretty nor beautiful._

_The white paint is uncapped, and Rung concentrates on filling in the prepped area on Ambulon's forearm. The mech he pampers tries to stay still, but the obsessively-careful painting is taxing whatever scraps of self-control survived the first three overloads. The fingers and wrists set on Ambulon's arm to steady the brush are not helping. _

_"Please don't move," Rung says, knowing that, and his face is neutral when the reclining Autobot's fidgeting gets correspondingly worse. There is a glimmer of good humor in his optics, however. "Ambulon. The patches will smudge. We will be here for hours if I have to repaint you."_

_Ambulon wriggles, stares at the ceiling trying to count bolts, gives up, and wriggles some more. Sounds good to him._

"I am not sure how to do this," the ward manager said, sounding like intimacy was an unfamiliar medical procedure.

"Would you prefer that I take charge?" Rung asked him.

Ambulon hesitated. It wasn't that he thought the psychotherapist would hurt him, certainly not after the long discussion they'd just had about what they both wanted from this, but…trust was a difficult thing for him at the best of times. "What do you mean by that?"

"That depends on what you want to try," the orange mech said, spreading his hands to offer Ambulon the choice. "It can be as simple as giving us some verbal directions, or explicitly ordering you in how or what to do next."

That got a startled look from the ward manager sitting, back rigid, in one of the chairs in front of Rung's desk. Rung himself was sitting in the other seat as an equal, of course, and Ambulon frankly couldn't picture the slender mech taking a dominant role. That just - blew his mind a little.

On the other hand, this was a paintjob. Not outright molestation or interfacing; just a paintjob and tactile stimulation if they were both comfortable with how things progressed. The worst that could happen was him telling Rung he didn't want to continue. He was confident the psychotherapist would respect his boundaries.

If he was going to indulge his curiosity in one way today, why not another?

"…if that's something you want to do with me?" he agreed without agreeing, but he instantly corrected himself when Rung gave him that patient look that would lead right back to the discussion of explicit consent. "I'm willing to try taking orders, for a while at least."

"I'll make sure to ask if you'd like to change it up, then." The orange mech held out a hand, smile charmingly lopsided. "Don't be afraid or ashamed to state your mind, Ambulon. I'm far too old to not find pleasure in trying what my partners want to do next," he said as Ambulon looked at the hand, at a loss for a moment before catching on and giving the smaller 'bot his hand in return. "Thank you."

The thin voice sharpened, not gaining volume but taking on a severe tone. "Now, stand up and let me take a look at you. I think my work is cut out for me, judging by the state of what I can see." The buzz of a closely-clamped EM field against Ambulon's hand spanked the ward manager with the same strictness in Rung's voice.

Ambulon was out of his seat and standing at attention before he even realized what he'd done, but his hand was still being held in the smaller mech's. Rung sat back, crossing his legs and looking up at him. Taken aback, Ambulon stared down at him. An orange thumb ran over white knuckles, half assessment and half reassurance, and the lopsided smile was accented by how Rung's head tilted to one side. It was so unthreatening even the ward manager's self-consciousness couldn't translate to defensiveness when the seated Autobot looked him over in a study of every chipped spot visible.

"Is this okay?" Rung asked solicitously, thumb still rubbing white knuckles.

It got him a blink, and a nod.

"Good. Then this is what I'd like to do. I want you to think about this and tell me what you think of each phase. First," he held up a finger on the hand not holding Ambulon's hand, "I want you to lay on the couch so I can work on your front. Second, if you're comfortable with how that feels, I want to introduce a few physical restraints - verbal only," he clarified. "If you are enjoying taking orders, I'd like to change how you are positioned and have you hold the position. Third, and I'd like to say again that this is a tentative plan only as I want you to feel free to stop or change this at any point. But third, to paint your back, I want you to bend over a chair so I can easily reach the areas I'll need to sand down."

By this time, the ward manager's fans had overridden the manual lock and started whirring away.

Rung smiled that crooked smile up at him. "What do you think?"

Ambulon scooped his mind out of his interface systems, where it was wandering around wondering just when all these kinks had sprouted. "I…think that is a working plan. I'll be, um, sure to give you my input on each phase," he said, and if his voice wasn't entirely level, Rung was kind enough not to say anything.

The psychotherapist ran his thumb over white knuckles one more time, then let them go. "In that case, let's begin. Lay down on the couch, Ambulon."

_Common hands and a mundane chore make for an achingly erotic experience under the right circumstances._

_Rung moves on to the next chipped spot. His hands cause Ambulon to suffer in the best way._

_"Is this alright?"_

_"Yes. I - " _

_The psychotherapist stops his work and gives his shivering partner a questioning look for the aborted sentence. A brief flare of his EM field over the medic makes him put down the sander and wait for the larger Autobot to speak. "What would you like?"_

_Yellow optics avoid looking directly at him. Ambulon can't stay still. The build-up of charge has snapped minor overloads through him, but the overall increase in energy is like the gradual but unstoppable influx of the tide. It rolls through him, head to feet and back again, but he keeps his legs spread and arms above his head as ordered. It makes him feel strangely vulnerable. It makes him feel a little weird, but mostly just…wanting. His spark pulses in his chest, pulled up to the surface underneath every spot Rung has touched in an oversensitive, wonderful endurance test. He wants so much. _

_That's the problem, isn't it? How much, exactly, is he allowed to want before it's too much? _

_"Can you." His hips jitter on the couch, and his shoulders shift. His optics flick to Rung and away again. Requesting anything is a weakness, or it was among Decepticons, anyway. Requesting something in this situation is strange. But he really wants it. "Can you…kiss me. Again." _

_Maybe it's not polite to neglect tacking on a 'please,' but he feels odd enough already. He doesn't want it to seem like he's pleading, even if asking for more feels like he's being greedy._

_Rung just laughs, low and warm, and lavishes Ambulon with attention._

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**_Tarn & Pharma - "Robots in Ugly Sweaters December"_**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Vos' sadism had its strokes of genius at times.

Tarn leaned back in his chair and watched the security monitor contentedly. Usually he preferred a more hands-on approach to dealing with Autobots, but ah. Not this one. This one, he intended to keep around for a while. It'd necessitated a change in tactics, more than Pharma likely suspected but less than would have been actually inconvenient. Helex had put a berth and a table in the brig cell, giving it some of the comfort of a room instead of the bare walls of a waiting chamber. Kaon had reined in the Pet so the thing at least didn't weasel through the bars and chew on the jet in his sleep. Tesarus remembered to go down and dole out a ration of energon, even.

The crew of the _Peaceful Tyranny_ had toned down their behavior in general, really. They were being positively friendly by their terms, mostly because Pharma reacted so strangely to his captors being polite in the face of his acid hatred. They didn't let on that they didn't tend to torture to those not on the List. Murder, yes, but Autobots and other annoyances were killed far more quickly. They didn't tell Pharma that, however. Their guest was defensive, resentful, and scared out of his mind all at the same time because he feared they were keeping him for nefarious purposes.

Well, they were, but probably not the ones he was afraid of. No, the Decepticon Justice Division just let their guest think Tarn was protecting him from them. Tarn had his own purposes, and keeping the Autobot seeing him as both tormentor and savior served his purposes just fine. The others mostly left the trapped jet alone. The confinement and isolation would eventually wear Pharma down. The medic had already begun reading out of sheer boredom, and Tarn had stocked the table with a selection of Lord Megatron's most inspirational works. The more Pharma read, the more frequently the D.J.D.'s leader visited the jet to discuss the underlying fundamentals of the Cause.

Tarn played a long game, but it wasn't like his guest was going anywhere. Escape was not an option. Tarn had made sure of it.

He didn't mind sharing his toys, however, and Vos did like to play games, even games that couldn't leave marks. Pharma had complained that the brig was too cold, and Vos had responded with a stroke of brilliance the other Decepticons onboard had to admire. Good hosts would want their guest to feel comfortably warm, after all.

Hence, the most hideously-colored, oddly organic temperature regulator Tarn had ever seen. He found the thing to be bizarrely fascinating on Pharma, like watching a beautiful work of art be defiled. There was something terribly wonderful in seeing a graceful, appearance-conscious professional like his pet jet be reduced to a horror before his optics. The garish thing covered Pharma from shoulders to hips, including some truly ugly winglet covers with…bobbles of some kind hanging off the tips. The Pet was crouched outside the cell, fixated on every twitch of those bobbles.

Of which there were plenty, as Pharma hadn't stopped fussing since Tesarus and Helex had forcibly stuffed him into the giant Autobot cozy. The medic had eventually calmed down from verbally frothing at the mouth, but he kept fretting at the sleeves. They extended well past his truncated wrists, and without hands, he had no way to push them up his arms. Tarn wondered how long it'd take before he stooped to using his teeth. It was the only way Pharma would manage to get the gathered ends up over his stumps.

In the meantime, the surgeon kept flicking his be-stockinged wings and glaring dourly at the rather morbid t-cog pattern on the thing cover him. He couldn't manage to tear it off - Vos had rather cleverly sewn him into it - and the floppy sleeves prevented him from using the datapads on the table. Tarn had keyed them to respond to the clumsy, broad touch of the Autobot's amputated wrists instead of fingertips or a stylus, but the screens didn't register pressure through the organic stuff the cozy was made of. Pharma had pawed at the datapads for a long while before finally giving up on that.

So not only was the jet humiliated and frustrated (and toasty warm!), but he'd soon be bored out of his helm. Excellent.

Tarn would go down and offer to read to him in a few joors time. By then, Pharma would be half-mad with boredom and willing to tolerate any company, even his.

The tank turned away from the security monitor, chuckling low to himself.

By the time he meandered down to the brig, a cube of energon and a datapad of Lord Megatron's most profound poems in hand, his lovely little jet had been driven quite crazy. It was the only conclusion Tarn could draw from watching the Autobot tease the Pet with one wing-stocking bobble through the cell bars. _Flick-flick-flick_ went the wing and attached bobble, with Pharma watching intently as the undead technimal rolled on the floor right outside the call. The Pet whined, paws swiping at the taunting ball of fluff held just out of its reach.

"You do manage to keep yourself amused down here," Tarn commented mildly, mentally congratulating Vos on a masterful move. Pharma had been wary of the Pet since he'd woken up with it drooling on him the first orn onboard the ship. This was an improvement over half-scared loathing. The Decepticon looked forward to the orn Pharma's attitude toward him also changed.

The Autobot looked up at him and smiled, and Tarn blinked in surprise. Had that time already come? What a pleasant surprise!

Pharma stood, squaring his wool-covered shoulders, and the Pet rolled upright to sit and stare at the bobble held through the bars above its head. "Yes, I do," the jet agreed, still smiling.

It took Kaon half a breem to pry the Pet off Tarn's head, Vos half an joor to repair the scratches to his mask, and Tesarus half an orn to stop laughing and rewinding the security footage to watch Pharma punt the technimal straight into Tarn's face. Helex reported that the Autobot didn't even struggle when he went down to slap a pair of hobbles on those deceptively long but very slender red feet. He just smiled and thanked the D.J.D.'s walking smelter for the gift, yes, he was nicely warm now.

Tarn glared at the security monitor. Smug gloating was radiating off the medic. He could tell.

Vos offered to find a matching hat and leg warmers.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

PICTURE AVAILABLE ON Ao3: "Robots in Ugly Sweaters December" by Shibara

**[* * * * *]**


	3. Pt 3

**Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 3

**Warnings: Nonsticky rape, interfacing, fluff, and spanking. Here there be weird things. Also, spoiler alert for MTMTE #12.**

**Show Rating: ** R

**Continuity: **IDW & G1

**Characters: **First Aid, Metroplex, Whirl/Chromedome, Fortress Maximus, Overlord, Krok, Fulcrum, Bob the Insecticon, Grimlock, Ambulon, Misfire, Crankcase, Skids, Rung, Pharma

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **Stuff from kinkmemes and random people.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_ "something with First Aid & Metroplex"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

There were small feet pattering about on his optic. Only First Aid would tip-toe like this, afraid to hurt him. Him, the cityformer whose optic frames could crush the comparatively tiny ambulance if he narrowed them too quickly.

"How's this?" the medic asked worriedly, fussing as he carefully placed his feet. "Is this okay? Tell me if you want me to move. I know the weight tolerance of your optic glass is high, but there's no reason for discomfort when I could just as easily run this scan from on your cheek. As long as that's alright. Should I move?" Little feet shifted when he didn't answer, having assured the Protectobot multiple times already that standing on his optic was just fine. Saying it again would be small comfort at this point.

First Aid finally settled down enough to run his scans. "What can you see?"

"I see you," Metroplex rumbled.

The titan's voice wasn't intentionally tuned to deep bass, but his vocalizer was simply so tremendous that everything touching his metal vibrated with it. First Aid had to take a few quick sidesteps to keep his balance, one arm waving. The other was holding his scanner readout. "That's an improvement, I suppose. I'm getting readings that indicate you're drawing enough power to see the surface of the moon, however. Recalibrate for zoom magnification of 200% and tell me, um," he looked up and glanced around before pointing, "what color is the third feather on the flight pinions on that bird's wing?"

The bird fluttered rapidly through the sky, and First Aid waited expectantly. Under his feet, the giant optical sensor whirred, a hundred rings of light narrowing and expanding in turns. The beams of light washed over the comparatively tiny Autobot standing above it. Only the thick plating of glass separated the medic from Metroplex's inner workings. His feet were suspended above a powerful tool of sight.

"What do you see?" First Aid prompted after the silence had stretched on an oddly long period.

"I see you," the cityformer repeated truthfully, but the pervasive voice had quieted until it was more felt than heard.

Startled, the Protectobot looked away from his readouts to stare downward. A massive optic stared back, functional and fixed on something - someone - who filled his sight completely.

After a while, First Aid knelt to gaze back, one hand resting gently on the glass. The touch was barely there to Metroplex's massive network, yet every sensor was attuned to it.

They didn't move for a long time.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**_ Whirl - "handjob" / Chromedome - "gratitude"_**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

There was a thing on the _Lost Light_. A Whirl thing. It didn't get talked about, but somehow everybody knew about it. Nobody knew who had started it, although whispers attributed the blame - or brilliant idea, depending on how who was talking - to Rung. Not that the psychotherapist had ever been in the unofficial, not-talked-about schedule, but it just seemed like a Rung idea. Lessen shipboard tension by dulling Whirl's sharp-edged personality a bit? It was either Rung or Ultra Magnus who'd come up with it, and nobody could quite picture the Duly Appointed Enforcer subtly suggesting and organizing a sex schedule.

So everybody knew that Whirl was getting laid regularly, and it was kind of helping. He hadn't torn a strip off of Swerve for shooting Rung, at least, and he'd even seemed to be mellowing toward Cyclonus. He wasn't exactly a pleasant mech to be around, obnoxious rude glitch that he was, but he didn't start brawls in the bar and he could reliably be found at Rewind's movie nights just hanging out in the crowd. He didn't even actively attack Fortress Maximus' brig cell anymore.

Huh. It must have been Rung. Ultra Magnus himself seemed vaguely surprised by Whirl's lack of instantaneous violence nowadays. It didn't make sense that he'd be surprised by the results of his own work, so yeah. Poor Rung must have set things up.

Knowing about the schedule and getting on it were two entirely different things, however. Chromedome finally tracked down the two main volunteers, mainly by accident. Swerve had a big mouth, and everybody knew that he was good for a roll in the berth, but Chromedome hadn't know that the bartender had been taking over more and more slots lately until Swerve's name kept popping up on when the mnemosurgeon tried to find out who was next. And next. And next after that. Trying to find the next mech on the schedule so he could take a slot kept leading him back to the bartender, but Swerve was out of commission until his face was reconstructed.

"When will that be?" Chromedown asked Ambulon impatiently. "Two days from now? A week?"

The taciturn ward manager didn't even look up from sorting parts. "Three to four days, and two more off-duty to let the welds settle. Why?"

There was little need for fancy wording around Ambulon, of all mechs. "Will he be on his feet in time for his turn interfacing with Whirl?" the mnemosurgeon asked bluntly.

"No," Ambulon said back, tone bland. "I can't take any more slots while the medibay's backed up like this, either, so Tailgate volunteered." He looked up at last and let his mouth quirk in an unamused smirk. "Cyclonus was not pleased."

Chromedome didn't give a flying wingnut whether Cyclonus had stood up and applauded. The Decepticon could go smelt himself, in the mnemosurgeon's considered opinion. Ambulon had given him the needed information, so he kept his peace and called it good enough. "When is your next slot? I'd like to take one for - "

"I'm sorry, but no," that bland tone cut him off, and Ambulon went back to sorting parts. "I'm not interested in giving up any my slots." The tone might have been bland, but there was iron refusal to discuss the decision lurking in the words. "Try Tailgate. Maybe Cyclonus' disapproval will make a difference."

Unfortunately, Tailgate seemed oddly reluctant to give up any of his new slots with Whirl. "Look, don't take this the wrong way," he told the taller mech in an apologetic voice, "but I think I could use it more than you right now. You've got Rewind, after all." There was a flicker of covered optics toward the empty side of the habitation suite. "Frankly, I've got charge with nowhere to go, and Swerve said - well, there's a reason why he takes every slot nobody else grabs." There was a faintly embarrassed air to his EM field, but it was covered by the glitter of anticipation and the fluttery ebb and flow of lusty charge.

Chromedome stared for a moment. This, he had not predicted. For one thing, he'd never thought of this particular mech as a randy 'bot, but the charge coming off him was enough to arouse a drone. He had to shake himself to get loose of it. "You must be joking. You won't give me a single slot? For Primus' sake, you **know** why I want it!"

"I know." The newbie Autobot looked a little concerned. "Is that healthy, Chromedome? I don't know why it's like these days, but paying off a debt with sex seems a bit…wrong?"

Oh. Putting it that way did cast it in a questionable light. "I'm not trying to pay a debt," the mnemosurgeon huffed, crossing his arms before he could stop the defensive gesture. "I simply want to express my gratitude in a way I think Whirl may believe more than he did my words." He'd felt the rotary mech's doubt even as he'd hugged him. Whirl hadn't believed he meant what he said even while trying to swamp Rewind's personal savior with sincerity. He owed Whirl, and he wanted Whirl to know how much he appreciated what the mech had done.

Tailgate shifted uneasily, his charge tempered by concern, and Chromedome reluctantly pulled out the big guns.

"You know, Cyclonus will feel his field on you for at least a day afterward."

He'd have felt guilty about how fast he got Tailgate's two slots after that, but Chromedome didn't do guilt. Especially when it came to the most obvious (and revolting) crush on the _Lost Light_. Rewind claimed Cyclonus had put himself between the memory stick and the bomb, but that didn't mitigate everything _else_ the fragger had done.

Regardless, he got the slots and watched the time count down to the first appointment with a case of jitters he hadn't expected. It was just interfacing. A quick screw. He didn't know what was up with Ambulon and Swerve grabbing slots so often, but nobody had ever mentioned the thing with Whirl being a hideous chore. Except for his less-than-stellar personality, the ex-Wrecker wasn't a bad sort to look at. He wasn't all that attractive to Chromedome personally, but through the filters of personal hero and abject appreciation, he was slagging gorgeous.

When the time came, he patted Rewind's hand and leaned down to press his forehelm to his tiny friend's. The shimmering projection of electromagnetic energy off Rewind's tired circuitry was the biggest comfort he'd ever felt. And Whirl had prevented that weary little EM field from disappearing from Chromedome's world forever. "I've got something I need to do," the mnemosurgeon murmured. The memory stick was almost in recharge anyway, his body laboring to integrate all the patches First Aid had put on him. "I'll be back. I promise."

It was hard to leave Rewind alone for any length of time. He tore himself away and walked out of their habitation suite quickly before he lingered any longer.

He stopped in front of Whirl's door wondering how he should approach this. Indecision wasn't something he was used to. It was just that…he'd thought about outright offering to interface with the rotary mech, but Whirl had a way of making every offered kindness seem like an attack. As a rule, Chromedome had noticed that Whirl rejected as pity most things mechs tried to give him. It was like the ex-Wrecker had gotten so used to bad things that he didn't know how to handle the good anymore.

Freely offered good, in any case. The schedule thing, on the other hand, seemed to be working out. Chromedome tapped the access pad and politely pinged. "Whirl?"

The door opened. "Eh?" For a faceless mech, Whirl managed to look confused pretty well. "Whaddya want, domehead?" He hopped a step back and gave an exaggerated cringe. "No more hugging!"

And that shining personality reared its ugly head. Chromedome narrowed his visor slightly and stepped forward. "I'm here for what **you** want, actually." The door slid shut behind him.

He was close enough that he felt the sweep of amusement and bafflement go through the rotary mech's EM field. "I know this's a bit obvious, but I feel like I gotta point out how un-Tailgate-ish you're looking today, Tailgate." Whirl's head cocked. "You okay? Have some lousy energon or something? You shouldn't drink anything in Swerve's personal stash. Trust me, I know." He held a pincer to his head to mime a hangover. "You wake up as somebody else, lemme tell ya."

Sadly, the mech probably thought he was hilarious. Even stark gratitude couldn't make Chromedome laugh at his bad jokes, however. "Cyclonus apparently doesn't approve of Tailgate 'facing you," the mnemosurgeon said somewhat snidely. "I can't **imagine** why."

Upon hearing that, weirdly, Whirl went very still. He stared unblinking at the shorter Autobot for a long moment, and a cold salting of some unidentifiable emotion spattered his field.

Chromedome stared back, taken off-guard by his reaction. He'd expected the ex-Wrecker to crack another poor joke, maybe mock the Decepticon, not…this. Whatever this was.

After a too long, Whirl turned away and shrugged his shoulders. "Figures."

Because that wasn't cryptic at all. "What do you mean?"

"Nothin'." The tall mech walked over to the nearest berth and flopped down. "So. How you want to do this?"

Chromedome followed, trying to push aside the curiosity and odd case of nerves he still suffered. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Stopping when he was in front of the seated mech, he raised a hand and put it on Whirl's cockpit. "This is for your benefit, after all."

Whirl's benefit, not his, but interfacing with the big Autobot served his purposes right now. He couldn't find any other way to convey just how much he owed this mech. The rush of gratitude returned. Under the glass and heavy layers of protective casing beat the V-Positive spark that had the strength of pulse his own didn't. He was envious of that fact, but so, so grateful for it. Rewind's spark had been jumpstarted by this spark. This spark had _saved_ the tiny Autobot, and in saving him, had saved Chromedome in turn.

The mnenosurgeon suddenly crowded close, pushing his wordless appreciation through his field as hard as he could as he put both hands flat on the glass in stunned recognition of just how close he'd come to losing Rewind. There but for the grace of Whirl did they live. "Whirl, I can't tell you how - "

"Ambulon screws me," the ex-Wrecker cut him off, EM field as level as his voice. Although his field held dark, wary shadows his voice didn't betray. "Puts my legs over his shoulders and drills away so hard and fast the threads once friction-heated so much the berth caught fire." Chromedome's head snapped back, and his visor widened until the frame creaked protest. "Swerve uses his mouth until I'm almost done and then lets me screw him, but that's not an option with you, is it? What with the mask. And I don't think you've got a built-in tap-expander like Swerve does." Whirl cocked his head. "Do you? I mean, frag, I dunno if whatever you use to 'face the runt's gonna work with me - "

"That is **hardly** any of your - " A deep in-vent interrupted his reflexive interruption. Whirl seemed to specialize in getting a rise out of mechs. This was positively restrained, compared to how he usually was. Chromedome chalked it up to awareness of this being a volunteer service. "…no," he said more quietly, but curtly. His tap modifications only made it capable of downshifting, not up. "It will not work."

It made him think about what would, and his mind was abruptly filled with images he'd never previously considered. Imagining Swerve's wide, expressive mouth shaping an ecstatic 'O' as he overloaded wasn't a new frag-fantasy, but that same mouth sucking on a screw? That had to be stopped and considered. Vivid technicolor imaginings of that ever-present smile puckering down to a tight hole, broad lips pressing down to flatten against Whirl's hips. A blowjob wasn't something Chromedome had ever gotten. It wasn't a terribly popular thing anyway, what with the charge-shock discharge that came with a happy ending, but the image caught in his mind's optics. Swerve on his knees, mouth busy but likely mumbling because he probably never stopped talking…mmm. Okay, that was something the mnemosurgeon was going to have to bring up to Rewind later. It was a vision that should be recorded for posterity.

His visor had trailed down to eye Whirl's hips. He swallowed, picturing them fitting between Swerve's legs as the rotary mech took the smaller Autobot. Was it hard and fast, or did Whirl try to make it last? He imagined the scrape of metal as a screw spiraled in and out of a barely-compatible tap, the threads rasping and conducting and oh great, speaking of hard and fast, now he couldn't unsee Ambulon holding Whirl down on the berth. This berth. His visor flicked further down, sizing up the rotary mech's gangly legs and picturing them thrown over the ward manager's shoulders. The medic probably folded the larger Autobot in half and traded surges with every piston of badly-painted hips right there in the middle of this berth. Or maybe on the end, with Whirl hanging half off it while Ambulon stood there with his hands planted on the berth surface. Frag, maybe the medic grabbed the edge of the berth for leverage and _pulled_ himself in.

That was a surprisingly hot image, but it wasn't one he'd ever thought he'd have.

Whirl pointedly reset his vocalizer, and Chromedome jerked his head back up. The palms of his hands were heating as both he and Whirl's circuitry transmitted the excess charge of arousal. It bounced back and forth between them, and Chromedome did nothing to stop it. He also didn't stop the pincers closing gently around his hip projections and holding on like they were handles.

Those pincers guided him forward as Whirl moved back on the berth, and Chromedome found himself hoisted up by the hips to kneel astride the same gangly legs he'd been imagining kicking uncontrollably as Ambulon drilled in and out. His knees tightened around Whirl's thighs, and his chest pressed between the rotary mech's chest-mounted guns. Increased surface area only boosted the charge transmission, and his hands slid up the glass to rest lightly on Whirl's shoulders.

"Yeah. So, like I said. How you want to do this?" the ex-Wrecker asked roughly.

It took him a second to find his voice. It was low, and he was no longer nervous. "We're not compatible, screw and tap. I'm too small."

Whirl snorted. "I'm too big, you mean."

Chromedome paused, blinking his visor. "…right. We could make it work if I screw you?" It came out as a suggestion, because he wasn't sure the ex-Wrecker would be into that. He himself would prefer not to go that route, to be honest. There were ways to stimulate a tap with an incompatible screw, but they didn't have the expander necessary to fit Whirl into Chromedome's too-small tap, and Chromedome wasn't fond of the hip contortions he'd have to do to catch the inner threads of Whirl's too-large tap. Interfacing that way was too vigorous for his taste.

He tried to keep his opinion on it out of his EM field. Whatever Whirl wanted, he'd be more than willing to comply with. It'd be his pleasure, even if it wasn't physically pleasing.

"Uh." The sole optic scanned him. "I was kinda thinking of something else. I mean, if it's okay. I'm not pushing." He seemed to realize that he was still holding the smaller Autobot's hip projections, and a ripple of anxiety went through Whirl's field. He let go of Chromedome like he'd been burnt. "No pressure!"

That was unexpected. Somebody had obviously put the fear of neutering into Whirl at some point. That was something of a relief for Chromedome. He was a sturdy build, but he didn't enjoy the rough stuff. It was nice knowing he didn't have to worry about unwanted attention and _'no means no.'_ "What did you want?" he asked, trying to coax the anxious ripple down with another surge of lust-charge.

Whirl looked at him, then away. No, not away. He was looking to the side at one of Chromedome's hands.

The mnemosurgeon flexed it, experimenting, and the shudder that went through Whirl was a dead give-away even if a molten flow of charge hadn't snapped over the rotary mech's circuits hard enough to electrify his armor. The energy transmitted from metal to metal, and Chromedome jolted on the bigger Autobot's lap. His circuitry absorbed the foreign energy, and it felt _good_. He'd forgotten what it was like to have a lover large enough to drown his body in charge. Whirl's overload would zap him into an overload of his own even if they didn't screw the traditional way.

That sounded surprisingly good. He was used to being the larger partner now, but that hadn't always been true. Overloading by electromagnetic energy only was something he hadn't done in a while, and his interface hardware tingled pleasantly as he remembered past interfacing. The charge would be highest through the biggest point of contact, and his hands? A powerful influx of energy over the specialized, sensitive equipment stored in his hands. That…oh, yes. He'd take that, please and thank you. Rewind couldn't produce more than a third of the discharge a mech Whirl's size gave off.

This could be a very nice bit of stress relief for both of them tonight.

"Handjob it is," he breathed, leaning forward to nuzzle his facial mask against Whirl's canopy glass. He pushed a last glow of gratitude through his EM field, still trying to convince the mech of his sincerity, before letting lust bubble up to take over. "Lay back. I'll take care of you from here." He wriggled his fingers against blue shoulders, gambling that it was the lack of hands of his own that turned the ex-Wrecker on. It seemed he was right, as every individual touch of his fingertips produced a hot drip of arousal, tugging desire in a crawling climb from Whirl's pelvic span to coat the large Autobot's whole body.

"Yeah. Great. So, uh." Whirl reset his vocalizer again as he leaned back on his elbows, and a squirming hint of embarrassment infected his EM field. Chromedome paused in exploring the underside of the mech's prominent cockpit. What in the Pit could possibly embarrass an ex-Wrecker? "I get kinda loud," the spindly Autobot confessed, and his optic glanced away to avoid looking at the brightly-colored mech astride him. "And…specific. I don't know if that's going to be turn-off for you or not, but I can shut off my vocalizer if you want." One pincer lifted up to rub against the side of Whirl's faceless head, and the embarrassment flattened into a kind of muted anger. It didn't seem directed at Chromedome; just anger at the universe in general. "You probably will. Just tell me when you get sick of - yeah. When you're done."

What did that even mean? "I'll be fine," Chromedome assured him briskly, resolving to shut off his audios before he asked Whirl to shut off his vocalizer. Volume wouldn't be a problem, but he pondered what 'specific' meant as he put his hands back to work.

Whirl hesitated before slowly laying flat under him, letting him do as he wished. The smaller Autobot took his time discovering the complicated workings of a mech more used to pain than pleasure. That was the frustrating yet fun part about being living machines. He could download Whirl's design specs and still not have a clue what turned the mech on. Cybertronians were forged with body parts that responded in varying ways to stimulus, but it was how they learned to react to that stimulus that determined true reactions. Stroking Rewind's shoulder spauldings, according to his frametype, should have reduced the little memory stick to putty in Chromedome's hands, but he only shrugged when handled there. Touch his camera, however, and he'd flare arousal so fiercely certain stations would pick it up as a broadcast.

In much the same way, stroking his palms over Whirl's stabilizers produced nothing but an interested hum from the mech's inner workings. Butting his helm against the chest-mounted guns caused the blue Autobot's interface hatch to snap open. Massaging his fingers around the canopy seals made that heavy-lift engine turn over, thrumming directly down Whirl's legs to vibrate against Chromedome's inner thighs, but delicately tracing his rotor assembly sent Whirl's screw spiraling up to nudge Chromedome in the chest.

The mnemosurgeon took a moment to look at it, letting his hands distract Whirl by prodding into the gun barrels while he gave the screw a critical once-over. It didn't look all that special. The threads were more prominent than normal, practically ridges standing out from the thin inner diameter, but he couldn't see this being why Swerve and Ambulon were greedily hording the schedule slots. The thicker threads would create a more uneven charge transmission as a tap with shallower inner threads wouldn't lock with them. It'd force the energy to build to a certain point before it'd transfer through the sparser contact points, but that wasn't an uncommon phenomenon when two different frametypes fragged.

Whirl certainly wasn't standing out as a lover so far. He was mostly just lying there under Chromedome, which admittedly was sort of what the smaller mech had told him to do, but still. The passiveness was strange.

Then Chromedome took his hands away from Whirl's gun barrels and applied them to the screw, and…well, then. This was…different.

Different, but not bad at all. He let his fingers slide between the threads, gliding his palms over the crests. His hands deftly gave a half-twist that'd once driven Prowl to stop reading his blasted reports in the berth, and he paused to listen to the result.

Whirl's voice pitched higher. " - have no idea what that's doing to me. **Primus!** You've got the touch, that's like nothing I've ever **fe**lt! Oh, do that again, do it again, you could do this for a fragging **li**ving with hands like that. No joke. I'd pay for th**isss**…ah. **Ah.** Harder, yeah, mm, down the helix like that. Your **thu**mb! Primus! That's so good it can't be legal. You can do those little circles forever yeah, **nngh**. For**ev**er. Just crook your forefinger right there, unh, right there, do it again ah. Ahhh. Ah. Do it **nnaa-hhh** yes! Do it again and I'll do anything you want. Guh, yes. Yes! Like that, just like that - "

So that's what he'd meant by specific. Chromedome was amused, but mostly just wildly flattered. He smoothed and petted, hands working the screw from the blunt tip down and then dragging back-and-forth twists upward to gradually saw his palms over the ridge peaks. He rubbed his fingers down in the grooves, the smooth plating of his hands slicking over the rough metal of the roots and sides of every ridge. A few sparks friction-_shiiing_ed when his fingers scraped too hard, but Whirl didn't seem to mind. In fact, he was extremely vocal in his appreciation. Chromedome was beginning to see how he and Ambulon had set the berth on fire, if a few strokes filing down Whirl's thread helix had the rotary mech deliriously praising Primus and praying for harder, better, faster.

Whirl's voice got louder, going from high squeaks when Chromedome dragged the length of his fingers across the screw tip, to guttural and low when the mnemosurgeon applied both hands to the base. It turned, speeding up as the charge built and it drilled between his hands. The nonstop stream-of-consciousness babble just kept coming. For every blush of rising energy pulled from hard-working systems, Whirl poured another dosage of praise over Chromedome. It was almost as intoxicating as the lap of charge bleeding up the smaller Autobot's thighs, setting his own body afire with the shared pleasure of a slow build toward the peak.

" - broke the mold when they cast your bl**as**sted hands, swear to Primus, never felt anything like this. I never want this to stop, I don't, just keep going, yessss. Like that. Oh Primus oh Primus oh splay me open and do whatever the Pit you want! Just do it!" Whirl writhed and groaned, head thrown back and hips bucking. "Hands made by Primus himseeeeeh oh eh **yes**. That's incredible. Whatever you just did, please please do it a**gain!** Uhmmm like **that!** That! Fragging magic, I'm not even kidding, is this even real? Is this actually **happen**ing - okay yes, point made, that's actually your hand on my screw and I'll take five more of that, please."

If Whirl was like this every time he got a frag, no wonder Ambulon and Swerve were snapping up every open slot. Chromedome's visor had dimmed to a sultry gold as he listened, and his body rocked instinctively against Whirl's thighs, seeking more of the pleasure soaking him. The conversation wasn't exactly intellectual, but his ego was rolling in it. This was like a soundtrack for future masturbation. How good of a lover was he? Whirl was apparently most happy to tell him, in explicit detail. The narration only got louder when Chromedome scooted back and patted a thigh suggestively. One leg kicked convulsively under him, but the rotary mech's knees snapped apart.

Heavy panting broke up the words now as every vent fan switched on full and Chromedome's fingers started exploring Whirl's tap in slow, inward-spiraling licks of charge. The rougher internal threads caught even more against his fingertips, and although he couldn't see the sparks, his fingertips shocked pleasantly as friction scraped them into a tiny internal rain. Whirl arched up on the berth and bucked his hips into the teasing circles, and his fans weren't keeping up with the heat making his cockpit canopy steam up.

" - node hasn't gotten switched on since before the war en-ded**unnnh**. Yeah, put your finger on that thread and - so good, that feels so good, uhhfffffright, okay, the frag-fairy came down and blessed whatever finger you just used to **ahhhh**. Ahhh, unnnff. Nnngh. Yes. Whatever finger you did that with, do it again. Put your thumb on that again**nnmmm**. Just like that. Put your hand up my taaaaah. Aah-ah-ah-ummhh. You're breaking my brain module. It's broken. It's coming out my tap. You've got your hand so far up me you could pull it out. Just do it. Take it out and throw it somewhere. I don't need it. Not gonna use it. Just gonna lie here and…twitch. Yeah. Sounds **good!** Yeeeek cold cold, those are coooold - whoa, hey!" Whirl suddenly went very still. His head tilted enough to see around his own chest, and his optic was very wide. "Are those…what I think they are?"

"If you think they're my injectors," Chromedome said, concentrating as he began to stroke down the screw in front of him with one hand and plinked up inside Whirl's tap with the other, "then you're right." The long, thin needles rattled and scraped, swirling and whispering and creating a miniature lightning storm of unpredictable energy transmissions inside the larger Autobot's tap.

Whirl's engine _screamed_. His monologue wasn't far behind. " - god of fragging kinky 'facing, a fragging **_god!_** Oh sweet merciful overload take me, I'm so ready **nngggh**, nevermind, I want more! More, please, yes yes **yes** yes yesss uhn-uh-ah-uhn yes - "

Forget demonstrating his gratitude. This was self-indulgent pleasure at this point, feeding off the addictive flow of praise and the purring rise of charge rapidly pulsing up their meshing fields in expanding surges that were approaching overload. He'd have to find another way to show his appreciation, because this Whirl thing was like the _Lost Light_'s hidden porn show. This was getting him off so hard he was going to talk Whirl into another round if the discharge didn't knock him out.

Chromedome was totally bringing Rewind along to the second slot. This was something close friends shared. Between them, if they brought an expander and Whirl was into the idea.

Maybe they could sign up for a regular spot on the schedule, too. Might have to fight off Ambulon and Swerve to do it, but this?

" - I can't, I can't even, I can't, I just can't, you're too good, too good, I can't deal with it, I can't, I can't - "

This was worth it.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Fortress Maximus - "force-feeding"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**Warning: Overlord's not a good guy.**

He opened his mouth for anything. It was available for whatever Overlord wanted to put in it: the Phase Sixer's screw, the screw of every Decepticon privileged enough to be allowed to use him, parts of his own dead garrison scraped off the floor or taken off the hooks hanging from the ceiling, the tools chosen to torture him that day. Anything it pleased Overlord to shove in.

That was the bargain. Despite torture and interrogation of himself or others, Fortess Maximus refused to hand over the information the Decepticon really wanted, so Overlord had targeted an area with more room to compromise. The item of real value was out of reach, but Overlord made his own consolation prize. Hence, the bargain: Fortress Maximus let Overlord use his mouth however he wanted, and Overlord stopped using the mouths of the prison warden's remaining guards. Be it rape, pain, or (rarely and most horrifically) pleasure, Overlord left their mouths alone and focused on their leader's as long as that mouth was willing.

It was a bad deal, heavily coerced. Fort Max had no way of knowing if the Decepticons who'd overrun the penitentiary were forcing his mechs elsewhere. Overlord, as a Decepticon, had no reason to keep his word. The tortured Autobot knew it, but what choice did he have? He could refuse the bargain and watch in helpless fury as his guards were punished for his refusal, or agree and at least hope the appearance of a deal was enough to spare them. Overlord had no other reason to let them be, after all.

No reason but the enjoyment of spending an entire afternoon thrusting his fingers in and out, in and out of a reluctantly compliant mouth. Overlord wasn't even looking at the prison warden chained to the floor beside him, chin propped on his knee. The enormous Phase Sixer was paging through reports and watching the chaos of the combat rink below, merely using his captive's mouth as an idle pastime to keep his hand busy, but that was good.

It was good because Fortress Maximus knew that the Decepticon's full attention meant worse than three fingers plunging deep enough to gag him. Two fingers scraped over the roof of his mouth. A thumb forced his jaw open, making room to join the two fingers and pinch his tongue. A large forefinger rasped through the tender hole where three of his denta had been pulled out at the roots. All four fingers filled him, stretching his lips wide around Overlord's hand as it violated every corner of his mouth, and the chained Autobot sucked, licked, and nibbled in response.

He never, ever bit. That was the bargain. His mouth would be pleasing, or his mechs' would take his place in all the very worst ways and then some. He had no doubt that freely offering his mouth was the better bargain, however rigged the bargain was. Overlord possessed a graphic turn of phrase, and where he'd failed in describing, well, he'd brought in visual aids and done some demonstrations on Fort Max himself. The Autobot would grimly watch his mechs scream and die to protect Aequitas, but when it came to just playing Overlord sick games for entertainment? Trading his own body for theirs in this torture was the only way he had left to fulfill his duty of care for them any longer.

So his chin was on Overlord's knee, his mouth receptive to the Decepticon fingers sliding in and out, and he lavished them with every trick he'd ever picked up or - more recent and terrible - been taught. Later, he'd pamper something else just as devoutly. He'd put his tongue out and lap, tongue obligingly curled between the sharp ridges that'd make his jaw ache when discharge electrocuted him. It wasn't something he looked forward to, but there were worse ways for the Phase Sixer to amuse himself.

And that's what Fort Max was trying to avoid, with his chin propped up and his lips closed around thick fingers. His tongue licked around Overlord's knuckle joints, and he hoped - he _prayed_ - that Overlord would stay distracted. Let the reports take more time than usual. Let the match end in a stalemate. Let today be different.

He desperately wanted those fingertips to keep playfully squeezing his tongue. It meant that Overlord wasn't really paying attention to him, and he'd rather be a background amusement than the main entertainment. That was better than the alternative.

Better than the spoonfuls of fuel being held up with a mocking smile. Better than when the spoon was held forward until the bargain made the Autobot open his mouth, because he _had_ to open his mouth. Then the spoon would slip into his mouth and tip slowly to dribble the energon across his tongue. Overlord smiled and made him _taste_ it. He hand-fed him, forcing the fuel on him, savoring the way the prison warden flinched despite himself as the fuel coated his tongue and lingered on his intake aperture. Fortress Maximus had to swallow Overlord's amused laughter with every mouthful of fuel fed to him straight from dead mechs' bodies.

He opened his mouth for anything, but he couldn't always keep down what was forced in.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Fortress Maximus - "I already know how it ends; that exit is blocked" _

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**Warning: Seriously, Overlord's not nice.**

Before it ended, before the final conclusion was reached, Overlord left Garrus 9. He left, and he took his broken pet with him.

It was boredom that motivated him. Megatron had not come. There was much violence to be found in the chaos of war, and waiting for a warlord far away to notice him waiting all the way across the vast galactic battlefield had worn thin. There were other important strongholds he could destroy, and other stands he could take. Megatron would eventually find him impossible to ignore, and then? Then the fight would be glorious.

The fate of Garrus 9 amused him. He'd known the Autobots wished to retake it, but he hadn't been aware of the Wreckers being slated to storm the penitentiary. They must have found it a ridiculously easy mission, going in expecting him and getting only the Decepticon unit he'd used to take the place. He chuckled to himself, imagining the carnage the Wreckers must have carved through the weakling cannon fodder he'd abandoned. If he'd known the Wreckers were on their way, he'd have stayed a while longer. Aequitas must have been worth something after all if the Autobots had been willing to send in their "best" troops. Overlord was certain he'd have gotten a better fight from them than he'd had since arriving at the prison.

Ah, well. Next time, perhaps.

To give them proper motivation for that future fight, he called the penitentiary from his shuttle. He had all the command codes, still. It only took the minion Autobot who answered one look to pass the comm. call up the chain of command. Perhaps it was Overlord's lazy grin that alarmed the Autobot so. It was the expression of a glutted predator looking to kill again: insane and calculating at the same time. Or perhaps it was how he held his pet leaning against his shoulder, utterly ruined and stifling despairing sobs as Overlord made sure the communication console's camera caught a good view of what he was making the mech submit to.

It wasn't a new torture, or even a particularly painful one. He thought, and it entertained him to see that there was still enough pride left in the Autobot for this, that it was enduring the humiliation of witnesses that was provoking the soft keen. How cute. He would have to exploit that at some further date.

For now, he merely used his pet's writhing shame to taunt the furious Wrecker glaring at him from the screen. "You could have saved him, had you come sooner, but...tsk. Too late. Now he's mine." He lowered his head and tenderly kissed the side of the black helm lolling back on his shoulder, angling his fingers to draw out a low groan for their audience's edification. "All mine," he purred, an assurance and threat directed at both Autobots.

His pet shuddered. The green Autobot on the screen still had the steel in him, however, and didn't flinch. Overlord looked forward to the day he'd pull that steel out through the mech's face.

"We will hunt you down," Springer said, level and deadly. "We will hunt you down and kill you."

Overlord smiled pleasantly. "Oh? I cannot tell you how afraid I am. How afraid am I?'' He freed one hand from its business, ignoring the moaning cry that provoked, and tapped a finger against his lower lip. "I need to show you how afraid I am. My dearest pet, I think you should serve as illustration." A pathetic whine came from the repaired but completely broken Autobot he held on his lap. Now that he needed no information from the mind inside, the body had been so simple to twist to his desires. The struggle of the mind to resist had only added to how he'd relished crafting that body into the perfect pet around it. "Fetch me a toy, Fortress Maximus, and I'll use you to show your friends how afraid I am." His dark voice laughed, and the sound held perverse warm contrasted to the cold words it said next. "Or would that be how unafraid I am? I suppose it depends on what toy you bring me, and how angry they become while watching me demonstrate it on you."

Fortress Maximus whimpered as he was pushed off his tormentor's lap. He looked up at the screen, expression pained, shamed, and pleading, but Springer could only helplessly look back at him. The ex-warden bowed his head and went to get Overlord a 'toy.' The broken Autobot couldn't escape when the exit was blocked.

This wasn't how it ended, but it wasn't over yet.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

Overlord - "I like the lip better."

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**Warning: Overlord = bad.**

It was a matter of aesthetics.

The glossa hid the piercing behind closed lips, but pulling on the chain brought it into view. That made it obvious that the glossa itself was meant for his pleasure, not its owner's, as well as making it impossible to speak. Bringing his pet's talented, well-trained glossa out for display had its appeal, yes, but…

"I believe I like the lip better," Overlord murmured, and Fortress Maximus winced.

It was a long, slow motion, more like the ex-prison warden shrank into himself than actually recoiled from his captor. The quick flashes of horror had become something of the past. What remained were the humiliations of submission and the pains that lingered. Fast motions meant he had no time to think, and that was bad. Thinking of the consequences of instinctual terror was becoming reflex. To jerk away from Overlord every time the agony hit or shame overwhelmed common sense was to accept that he'd be punished for trying to escape.

The Autobot wanted to escape, by Primus he did, but he'd learned his lessons in the time since he'd been taken away from Garrus-9. His…_owner_ had taught him well. Give Overlord the slightest leverage, and the Phase Sixer could train a rock to sit up and beg on command. Give him a powerful Autobot, and he'd make a pet of him.

Fortress Maximus reached up with unnaturally steady hands to accept the chain leash Overlord held down for him. The thing was more of a symbol than a real restraint; giving it to his pet to hold was like setting it on a piece of furniture for the Decepticon. Only more satisfying, because the ex-warden obediently kept his hands up and his own leash lying across his palms waiting for his tormentor to retrieve it. His face was already uplifted for easy access. His bleak expression didn't change as he tamely opened his mouth for the huge fingers that brushed across his lips.

The end of the leash laid cold and heavy over Fort Max's bottom lip, and Overlord wound the thin length of the chain around a forefinger. That finger tugged for the flinch of pain it got. The stud punched through his pet's glossa had a ring set on the underside. The leash had been fastened there. Every tug pulled the stud against the fresh piercing. It was, as he'd ensured earlier, excruciatingly painful if yanked on.

The first time, his pet had choked on a scream at the unexpected jolt of agony. It'd been quite amusing watching the big Autobot hastily stumble to follow where the chain pulled him. Overlord had hardly needed to expend effort to leash-train the mech when the threat of continued pain did it for him. The glossa piercing had paid off well, he felt. A small initial pain for such a large result.

The ex-warden was better disciplined now, grimly prepared not to give his captor anymore satisfaction than he had to, but that didn't make the shooting stabs of pain through his jaw hurt any less. He kept his optics dimmed and averted. Refusing to react was the only defiance he could afford to hang on to. Anything else had been trained out of him with brutally meticulous care.

Overlord rumbled amusement from his power plant and let him keep his silence. If it was screams the Decepticon wanted, there were a myriad of ways to get them. Perhaps he would indulge himself later and teach a small lesson about when and how his pet's pain should be demonstrated for his enjoyment. The stoic surrender could be tiresome at times.

In the meantime, Decepticon forced three fingers and his thumb into the skilled mouth opened for his pleasure. He made sure to thrust them in too far, leisurely reaffirming his ownership. Not that Fortress Maximus fought him over that anymore, but it didn't lessen Overlord's pleasure in marking his claim again. He stroked over the surfaces of the mech's denta, petting his pet quite intimately, and chuckled softly when the intake against his middle finger flexed helplessly. The thick finger circled delicately, brushing around and around the circumference of the intake before nudging into it.

It convulsed around his fingertip as he pushed it in and out in miniscule motions that did nothing but stimulate the sensitive aperture valve. A curl of his finger held it open yet further, and Fortress Maximus gagged as his tanks pinged him. Overlord delighted in how the Autobot shook slightly, fighting off a purge. Purging his tanks over Overlord's feet never ended well.

By the time the larger mech withdrew his hand enough to finally unclip the end of the chain leash under Fort Max's tongue, the Autobot had his optics off. His mouth remained open, but his face had twisted up into an expression of revulsion tempered by determination. He would not purge. He _could not_ purge.

Overlord's plush lips curved in a pleased smile. "Well done," he complimented his pet softly, because the words burned and he knew it.

He let his fingers smooth over the Autobot's lower lip again, clinking off the ring he'd set into it earlier when the aesthetic debate had begun. The leash clipped onto it, and ah. Yes. Much better. Nothing made it so clear how far this mech had been broken than to have the method of control out on the open. It was nothing but a thin chain attached to a lip ring. The ex-warden of Garrus 9 could tear it out in a moment if he hadn't been taught not to.

Instead, he was going to follow Overlord like a good pet, right out into the busy spacestation. The Decepticons who worked the station would take one look at him and know how far he'd fallen. It was there for all to see in how he stood in Overlord's shadow, knelt beside his chair, and crawled into his lap on command. The leash held out on open palms right now could be offered to anyone Overlord chose to give him to, and Fortress Maximus would follow the pull no matter who was on the other end so long as his tormentor was the one who gifted the leash away. He'd learned his place, and it was wherever - or under whomever - Overlord told him it was.

The Phase Sixer merely tugged gently on the lip ring for now, half a warning against and half a test of his pet's attitude. It seemed it wouldn't be a problem today, however. The ex-warden subserviently lifted the leash up toward him in response. He loved how the Autobot's helm had already bent, optics down to covertly study his every move. Even from this angle, the expression of dull defeat was obvious. His pet was ready to serve, to anticipate which way he'd step next, which way the pull would come from, where he was expected to follow now.

He gave the chain hanging from Fortress Maximus' lip a last considering look as he picked the leash up again and twined it around his forefinger. It did indeed look best like this.

"Heel, Maxy."

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

PICTURE ON Ao3

"Heel, Maxy" by Shibara

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

** [* * * * *]**

_"Universal pet antics" _

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"Lookit. Lookit." Misfire elbowed Crankcase, who lowered his cube to glare at the jet pestering him. "Lookit what I got him to do."

Crankcase followed Misfire's pointing finger and blinked. "What the slag-sucking Pit-spawn…"

The flyer grinned. "Isn't it great?"

"'Great' isn't exactly what I thought of first," Ratchet said, and his head tilted slowly to the side as if the change in perspective would help him understand. "Why the frag would you teach him that?"

Sunstreaker shrugged and quickly reached out to adjust the tiny cube of energon before it slid off Bob's facial grill. "Why does anyone teach a pet tricks? Because I was bored, and I wanted to see if he could do it."

Crankcase shook his head and went back to drinking his ration, but his optics kept straying toward the spectacle. "Uh-huh. And how long did it take you to get him to do it?"

Misfire's grin took on a guilty cast. Fortunately, Grimlock was going cross-opticked trying to concentrate on the cube on his nose, so that was a good distraction. "Okay, Grimsy."

One lightning-fast snap-gulp later, and even the grumpy mech had to conceded that, "It's amazing he can catch the thing without spilling it all over."

"What can I say? He's talented." The pet in question got a pat on the head. There was an engine purr in response.

"Glitch," both medic and mechanic said, a sector apart but in much the same tone of voice, and it wasn't clear whom they were referring to.

Which was fine. Not everyone had to be impressed by pet tricks. They didn't even all have to like the things, although even the grouchiest of mechs would be hard-pressed not to melt when the cuddle-seeking started. Pets were all well and good, bundles of energy and affection.

Riiiiiiight up until they weren't.

"What's wrong with him? You've got to fix him!" Fulcrum hovered over Spinister, wringing his hands. Krok looked toward the ceiling as if asking for help dealing with the anxious mech. Spinister merely looked at the K-Con with the unruffled composure of someone with no emotional connection to ongoing events. Grimlock curled tighter, hiding his head under his tail as he whined hoarsely.

"If it'd just uncurl a bit - "

"**He.** He's not a **thing**."

Ambulon gave the impression of sneering without actually moving his face. "As you wish," he said with frigid politeness as he angled to squeeze a little further under the bar. "I don't know what you expect me to do, however. **He** is making it extremely difficult to check his vitals, and **his** specs aren't labeled in any of my databanks with anything but 'shoot here to hopefully kill it.'"

Swerve looked to Sunstreaker. "Can't fault that. Most of the time, we'd shoot on sight."

Fulcrum made a face back at Krok but nodded. "True. But c'mon! He's been onboard for two weeks, and nobody's done a scan of him? Can't you tell **anything** about what's wrong with him?"

Spinister prodded the Dynobot curiously. "In my expert opinion, he's in pain and not happy and this isn't normal."

There was a moment of silence for that statement of the obvious.

"…thanks."

"No problem." Ambulon inched in further and smoothed a hand over Bob's thoroughly miserable form. The Insecticon was tucked as far under Swerve's bar as he could fit himself, and the flutter of scans over his overheated form only made whimper and curl tighter. "Hmm."

"'Hmm'? That doesn't sound good." Fulcrum's hand-wringing picked up. Krok blew out a gust of air and gave the impression of giving up any pretense of believing the slender K-Con had a macho strut in his entire body. "What does 'hmm' mean?"

Spinister struggled to peel up the tailtip clamped stubbornly over Grimlock's snout. "It means this is either good or bad news, and I haven't made up my mind yet."

"That doesn't sound like something I want to hear, either way," Krok said slowly.

Swerve paused, optics squinting further. "Especially since he kinda chose **my bar** to do this in."

Sunstreaker glared at him. "Excuse me if the state of your fragging bar is the last thing on my mind right now!"

Krok glared right back.

"I mean. Uh. Sir." Fulcrum pasted a bright, slightly frantic smile on as he hurriedly turned back to the matter at hand. "So what's the news?"

Ambulon squirmed his way back out from under the bar. "From the activity of his internal forge and extrapolating from what structure's already been built, my diagnosis is that he's molting." He finally managed to get loose and sit up, and he used his new freedom to clap a hand on Sunstreaker's shoulder. "Congratulations," he said, deadpan. "You're going to have a flying bug in a few days time."

Fulcrum was too stunned to help extract Spinister from the ball of Dynobot now firmly curled up around the surgeon. "But…if his self-repair fixes whatever's wrong with his head…"

"Consequences are on you," Swerve informed Sunstreaker. "It's gonna be chaos when he comes out of it."

"But Misfire's the one who decided to bring him along!" Fulcrum protested.

"And you're the one who decided not to shoot him in the head when he was down and out."

Pets. They almost weren't worth the blackmail they created.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

Rung - "a mean drunk"

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"Uh…I don't…what?" For once, even Whirl looked uneasy. He glanced at Skids, then away with every indication of acute discomfort. "Call whoever's in charge of this clusterfrag and tell 'em I've got conflict of interest."

Skids stared at him as a break from gaping at the wreckage of Swerve's bar. "**You** are claiming exemption from action?"

If the rotary mech were any other Autobot, he'd have been squirming in anxiety and embarrassment. Whirl just glared. "I've had this held over my head once on this trip already. I **don't** need anyone saying I roughed him up taking him down to the drunk tank!" His voice dropped to a mumble. "Nobody'd believe my side of the story. They never do."

"Trust me. Right now?" The theoretician looked back into the bar. "I'd back you to the hilt. So come on." He pushed the door open the rest of the way and sidled in.

Whirl hesitated a minute more before shaking his stabilizers back and clomping after his fellow brute squad member. Time to earn his nonexistent paycheck. He'd insist on hazard pay, but it wasn't like he was formally part of the Ship's Guard or anything. Neither of them were. Ultra Magnus hadn't given Whirl a choice about being recruited into doing the nasty work, and Skids didn't have anything better to do. Apparently, the _Lost Light_'s executive officer thought he needed the ex-Wrecker under his thumb at all times, and Skids had proven himself rather resourceful - if not exactly rule-abiding - when he'd gone gallivanting about the ship during the sparkeater incident. They'd somehow ended up partnered up and working for Ultra Magnus without officially working for him.

Which was fine, because an ex-Wrecker left at loose ends was a bad idea all around, and Skids could kick enough aft when he chose to that he could keep up with Whirl. They got along just fine on-duty, and Skids was probably the only one completely unafraid to hang out with the rotary mech off-duty. Get them a few glasses of engex in, and they went off onto conversational tangents about their basic philosophical differences. Skids made flow charts. Whirl illustrated relevant points with chairs. Mostly to other people's heads, but usually in good fun, and he never went after anybody who wasn't halfway toward starting a fight in the first place. It'd been a long war, and he wasn't the only one on board who looked at an amiable brawl as entertainment. He was just the only one willing to _start_ the fragging things. Everyone else had these self-image concerns, what with not wanting to look like the bad guy. Whirl just didn't give a scrap.

It'd gotten to the point that Ratchet sent Ambulon after the two unofficial ship marshals any time they got smashed enough to start in on _'the meaning behind throwing a punch.'_ Ambulon might not look like a scrapper, but he transformed into something without interior spaces. He was solid metal and made to support a team of other mechs made of nothing but battle armor and weaponry. He was fully capable of throwing his considerable weight around when he had to. Plus, he had the personality of a lead brick. As in, he used it to repeatedly bludgeon those who invoked his ire.

Mech was built denser than a tank and mean enough to scold the tipsy duo into packing it in for the night. He just had to come in the door to the bar and _scowl_, and Whirl and Skids scampered back to their respective quarters to snooze off their overcharge peacefully. If they were beyond scampering by the time he arrived, he had no problem dragging their drunk afts through the halls, leaving paint transfers and whipped-cyberpuppy whimpering in his wake. He nagged them the whole way and sent Siren to greet their inevitable hangovers the next morning.

Sturdy. Yeah, that was the word. Ambulon was study. Also scary. Scary also worked.

Anyway, _usually_ Whirl and Skids were a relatively fearless pair. However, they were tip-toeing into Swerve's wrecked bar like they were frightened of the furniture. Strangely enough, their combined bad-aftness was still not enough to face down the source of the mayhem that'd left tables and chairs overturned all over the place.

"We should call the blasted medic," Whirl muttered, peering over a chair. He wasn't hiding, no sir, not him. He was merely utilizing his surroundings for maximum defensive camouflage. Kup had taught him about that strategy. He'd never used it prior to this, but there was a first time for everything. "Leg mech to the rescue."

"We don't need backup," Skids said back as he put his back to a table and shot a quick glance over the top. "He's just one mech. A scrawny one, at that."

"The optic ridges give him emotional power beyond the ken. Magic wizardry of self-expression." Pincers waved. "Don't underestimate the psychotherapist. He'll **look** at you, and suddenly you're talking about **feelings**."

"So in other words, I'll be fine if I just hide behind you?" Skids blinked and took his attention off the other end of the room when silence met his joking question. "Whirl..?"

The rotary mech ducked his head and snarled his engine. "I have feelings!"

"Heh."

"Go suck Ultra Fragnus' tailpipe," Whirl spat resentfully. Forget duck-and-cover. He stood up straight and stormed the bar. "Let's get this over with."

The two mechs already sitting at the bar saw him coming, but only one looked alarmed at having an ex-Wrecker in a sulky mood stomping toward him. Rung just looked over his shoulder and smiled, optics placidly amused as Whirl pushed his way through the clutter. "Hello, Whirl."

_*"I got him calmed down now, but please, please make him go away!"*_ Swerve whined through a tight comm. channel. The metallurgist's smile was supremely forced and more than a little desperate around the edges. He hurriedly resumed scanning the small non-combatant's hand, holding it between his palms as the equipment in his chest units and forearms swept over orange plating. He looked like the last place he wanted to be at that moment was standing near Rung, even with the bar between them. *"_I told him I need quiet to analyze the alloys of his hand, but if you set him off again, I'm gonna make a run for it."*_ His plea sounded a bit pathetic, perhaps because he knew that Whirl was the last person onboard who'd heed it. _*"Don't make him mad."*_

_*"Ratchet's standing by to remove the thing,"*_ Skids soothed, hurrying to catch up with the rotary mech like a physical manifestation of the diplomacy Whirl lacked.

Swerve looked up from his work to give them a sickly grin before looking down again. _*"Yeah, but how're you going to get him from here to there? Can you just…knock him out?"*_

Even Whirl stopped short at that. His optic blinked as he shook himself through reset, and he twisted his head aside to give Skids a glare that did a barely credible attempt at covering up a helpless look. Knock out _Rung_? The psychotherapist was literally the only non-combatant he had ever met, at least the only one who couldn't fight in any way whatsoever. He'd heard the tales. It was half the reason he'd agreed to attend sessions with the shrink. The Wreckers made fun of the gangly head-doctor, sure, but they had to respect a mech who refused a firearm yet opened his door to the most deranged, dangerous Autobots in the ranks. The only weapons Rung had were his words.

To be fair, that'd been enough to send an entire bar of combatants fleeing the room.

Swerve and Rung were sitting on either side of the bar like the untouched center of an explosion. Chairs and tables overturned in every direction away from where they sat. Swerve had been the one to place the emergency call asking for help, but that hadn't happened until Rung had started laying into the party-goers. He'd never seen anything like it, and he definitely never wanted to hear anything like it ever again.

Testing something meant to bring out the bad side of a mech on someone nobody found threatening might have been a good idea…well, never. In hindsight, yeah, it'd been a really lousy idea. Testing Brainstorm's stupid little micro-glitch on someone had seemed like a funny prank, but he should have asked the self-proclaimed genius for details. He hadn't, and look what'd happened.

He'd slipped the tiny mechanism into the one glass of engex Rung ever allowed himself, thinking he might get to listen to the slender Autobot actually complain for once. His other patrons consistently did. It was great entertainment, and Swerve had figured that Rung probably had either the most mundane or the most bizarre complaints hiding under his perpetual mild exterior. He honestly couldn't picture the mech haven't more of a 'bad side' than that, despite Brainstorm avidly watching - like that wasn't creepy or anything - from the stool beside the designated test subject.

Brainstorm didn't do subtle. Rung had been politely ignoring him after asking if there was something he could do for the mech. The psychotherapist had sipped his drink, and his optics had briefly crossed. Brainstorm had - rather rudely - invaded the psychotherapist's personal space he was so eager to observe Rung's reaction to the device, and even Swerve had stopped polishing the bartop to lean closer. The lithe orange 'bot had shaken his head as his optics reset, then smiled at the bartender with that sweet smile that normally had half the bar tripping over their own feet to sit by him.

He'd turned and laid into Brainstorm still wearing that pleasant smile.

Rung's bad side made Megatron look nice. Megatron had the physical threat down pat, but Megatron couldn't hold a torch to Rung in the mental arena. Megatron couldn't dissect your mind while you were still living in it, tell you the root cause of all your problems, and make you wither in your armor because of the caustic wit used while describing how intrinsically pitiful you were. Rung had cradled his drink in one hand, smiling, and said the very worst possible thing: the stark, unvarnished truth about things the Autobots gathered in the bar had long tried to bury.

Every mech had something tucked in their personal histories they didn't want to think about; denials, justifications, and complicated pains they preferred not to bring up. Most of them tried to convince themselves that they were at peace with their pasts, but that was a lie for the majority of them. The lie worked, however, so long as everyone played along.

But Rung had suddenly been in no mood to humor their collectively-fostered self-delusion. As Rewind had once noted, Rung turned up everywhere, watching everything. He was never an active participant, it seemed, but he'd _seen_ the entire war firsthand or via the locked files. He knew truths the Autobots in the bar would have paid money or even killed to prevent being spoken aloud.

Swerve would have been furious with Brainstorm if he hadn't witnessed the amoral aft cowering on the barstool as the psychotherapist sat beside him and calmly eviscerated him with words. It was hard to be mad at a mech left shivering, sliced to the spark by bitter, achingly sharp words.

After he was done with the 'genius,' the psychotherapist had turned and started on the next Autobot he saw. His words had been pure brutality couched in a soft tone. Pipes hadn't stood a chance.

Shock had paralyzed the room through three victims. There'd just been something incredibly difficult to process about the thin, mild-mannered Autobot punching through them. It'd been like being successfully assaulted by a powder puff. There'd been a part of the watching mechs that just couldn't connect to ongoing events.

Brainstorm had had his face on the bar with his hands covering his audios. Pipe's had been staring into space, optics vague as Rung's words continued rattling around in his head and peeling his ego apart one painful truth at a time. By the time Rung had finished tearing a strip off of Sunstreaker, the vain frontliner's jaw had been nearly in his lap. He'd pushed himself as far back in his chair as he could, and his optics had been wide and dim. Bob had pushed against his legs, whimpering anxiously. The bug hadn't understood the electric reek of bewildered terror slowly filling the room; the nice mech with the clever hands and gentle voice had only been speaking in that low and soothing tone he took when he was coaxing Bob to sit by the couch while his owner laid down for a while. It was a good voice. Bob liked that voice. Sunstreaker normally came out of sessions with that voice thoughtful, and Bob would get many antenna skritches while the sunflower yellow frontliner sat and pondered what had been said. Not today, it seemed. Sunstreaker's vents had all been flipped open, but the fans had stalled out.

The psychotherapist had daintily taken a sip from his glass, poised and ready to verbally spear the next mech who so much as twitched.

_*"Ever seen an entire room full of Autobots try to fit through one door all at once?"*_ Swerve asked sourly as he examined Rung's hand now. _*"Fragging __**Cosmos**__ got trampled in the stampede. Now knock him out before he starts talking aga - "*_

"You skipped your last session, Whirl," Rung chided, slipping his hand free of Swerve's and standing in one elegant motion. He turned to face the two mechs who'd reluctantly come to escort him to the drunk tank, and those impressive optical ridges looked suddenly imposing as he gave a reproving frown to the ex-Wrecker shuffling his feet before him. "You wouldn't want your progress to slow, would you?"

"Er." Skids looked between the slight Autobot and Whirl. Whirl was a big, tough mech. Rung was built of thin struts and light plating that'd crumple in the mech's pincers no problem. "Uh. No?" If there'd been a betting pool, right now Skids' money would have been on Rung.

"It's been so gradual already that I fear you're sabotaging yourself." That adorable smile flashed, the visual equivalent of the rattletrap warning a sparkeater's tentacles gave, and Swerve ducked under the bar. "In fact, I know you are. Whirl, I believe we should have a talk about some of your underlying issues. Please," he gestured at a miraculously upright chair, "come sit and talk with me."

_*"Don't do it!"*_ Skids and Swerve both urged over internal comm., but Rung's politeness only extended to saying the invitation. He actually didn't wait for his patient to accept before continuing.

The kind expression he wore was a lie. Rung was _mean_.

Two minutes in, and Skid picked his jaw up off the floor enough to throw Whirl over one shoulder and take off after Swerve, fleeing psychological warfare wielded by an expert in mouth-to-mind combat. Whirl was too stunned to react.

They met Ultra Magnus and his backup outside the bar. Skids plunked Whirl down, and the rotary mech took a few uncertain steps as if testing his own stability.

"Ah, Ultra Magnus. You never visit me in a professional capacity, despite referring my services to many." Whirl froze and slowly turned to look over his shoulder at the slender orange Autobot who'd followed them out. Rung leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and sweeping a contemplative look around the assembled mechs before focusing on the ship's executive officer. "I find that strange considering the hypocritical nature of the Accord you live and breathe by. I suspect at the core of you, there is nothing but mindless robotic subservience to it, and that is quite unfortunate considering the fundamentally flawed nature of the Accord. Did I ever tell you that I knew Tyrest?"

Whirl, Skids, and Swerve took off running as that whimsical, lopsided, horrible smile crossed Rung's face. Ultra Magnus' optics widened in alarm, but it was too late. The truth could break minds if told cruelly enough, and the psychotherapist was in a bit of a bad mood, one could say.

"Let me tell you exactly what kind of mech your beloved Tyrest really was."

Brainstorm had a _lot_ to answer for.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

Pharma - "broken toys and sharp edges

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"You are being deceived," he said, falling, and his voice stayed unnaturally dispassionate.

He fell into the abyss, and only someone with a twisted cause would come looking for him. But only someone using a Cause to serve twisted desires would have made a toy of a brilliant surgeon.

More fool Tarn, to break the toy.

Pharma had endured Helex's rough hands and Tesarus mocking laughter, but it was Kaon and Vos who had truly tortured him. "No marks," Tarn had said, turning the Autobot over to them, and they had agreed.

Kaon and his electricity. Vos and his sadism. They had agreed, and although the Autobot's armor had smoked afterward with the copper tang of burnt circuitry, none of the damage had been visible. Not the first time, nor the second. Nor any time after that, and the times had been many. No, the D.J.D. had had their fun with him, and nobody had come to save him. Nothing had betrayed how they'd played with Tarn's toy, and they'd released him only on their own terms.

Pharma had limped back to the Delphi Clinic every time with a few more sharp edges where there'd once been rationality, a snapped light behind his optics where the fierce intelligence kindled defiance to burn the fear as fuel.

Perhaps if there had been more time, a less drastic confrontation, Ratchet might have caught on. He was the Autobot Chief Medical Officer, after all, and had volunteered in the rehab clinics before the war even began. He'd seen mechs who finally broke. He might have recognized that repeated, ruthless torture had been what'd twisted the talented surgeon he'd once known.

Maybe he would have held some sort of compassion for the mad surgeon Pharma had become. Maybe he would have seen that the insane hate had driven Pharma to set loose a plague, not a loss of values or morals.

Maybe not. It had been a long war.

Regardless of might-have-beens and maybes, what had happened had happened, and Pharma fell.

Broken toy, discarded. Only a whimsical owner prone to gloating would ever come looking for his rusting, infected body.

And, kneeling by him, Tarn would _transform._

"You are being deceived," he'd say, and Pharma smiled as the pieces fell with him, coming together.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


	4. Pt 4

**Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 4

**Warnings: **Overlord is the opposite of Tailgate, and there's a heat virus loosed on the _Lost Light_. Don't read if that's going to scandalize you.

**Rating: ** R

**Continuity: **IDW

**Characters: Fortress Maximus, Whirl, Tailgate, Cyclonus, Trailbreaker, Pipes, Ultra Magnus, Swerve, Skids, Overlord, Chromedome, Rewind**

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **It's all Shibara, this round. And she wants a continuation of the first set, so I guess the next round starts with her as well. Yes, oh artist, I bend to thy whims, oh artist…_ Anyone else have a request?_

* * *

**Wherein the crew of the Lost Light is having too much of a good time, leaving Whirl and a confused Fortress Maximus to save them; Overlord trains his pet to obey; Tailgate thanks some people the old-fashioned way. **

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_"In heat"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**Warning: here there be heavy implied acts of sexual nature.**

Fortress Maximus had been dutifully putting in requests to see Rung for weeks. There wasn't much else he could do, what with being locked in the brig, but he tried what he could. Of all the confusion that'd come out of what'd happened, one thing he knew for certain was that he owed Rung an apology. So he put in the requests.

Just as dutifully, Ultra Magnus had been denying his requests. Fort Max had followed the proper procedures, but the request of an incarcerated, dangerous combatant to see the noncombatant he'd harmed had to be approved by a superior officer and jury of three involved peers. The vote hadn't been kept anonymous. Ultra Magnus and Ratchet had both voted approval under strict stipulations; Whirl and Rodimus had both voted denial with a few expletives attached. Fortress Maximus had gritted his teeth on an angry tirade against the denials, swallowed his well-deserved portion of humble pie, and put in another request.

After weeks of denial, the last person he expected to come skidding into the brig shouting, "Request granted, now get your skidplate moving!" was Whirl.

"What the…" He straightened on the berth and stared.

The shorter Autobot rebounded off the empty duty station - no guard had shown up this shift, oddly - and flung a pair of statis cuffs through the cell bars. "Here! Take these, and be prepared to use them!" The faceless head turned toward to the station console, and Whirl's pincers went to work typing in the passcodes. "Blah dee blah blah. Yeah, yeah, authorization code this, verify that, I should have just started shooting." He glanced up and did a double-take. "No, not on **you**! Frag, now I have to - " A pincer slapped down on the console, and Whirl bustled around the station as the bars powered down. "Yo, U.M.!" he called back toward the console's comm. mike. "I need your cuff code!"

Fort Max just held his cuffed wrists out and blinked, wondering when he'd gone mad. "Why give me cuffs if you didn't want me to use them?" He'd thought it was just part of Whirl's endless refusal to comply with regulations that the cuffs had been flung into the cell instead of put on him. Apparently not, if the frustrated huff was anything to go by. Whirl raised the bars and nabbed him by the cuffs to pull him out. Well, not that anybody Whirl's size could actually pull him around, but Fort Max knew prison procedures inside-out and backward. Prisoner compliance was the only thing that garnered leniency on behavioral reports that, in turn, affected parole or requests. He'd comply with Whirl pulling him around until he could pound the annoying glitch into tinfoil.

_*"Why are you making that inquiry of me?"*_ Ultra Magnus sounded strangely harried to Fort Max's experienced audios.

"Because Roddy gave me your cuffs, and then dumbaft here put them on instead of holding onto them like he was supposed to." How could one optic glare so effectively? Fortress Maximus gazed back, unimpressed by Whirl's ire.

_*"Whirl. You're not making any sense_."*

"He claims my request has been passed," Fort Max said, deciding to cut off whatever blathering the rotary mech would spout next. This was sounding more and more like a prank instead of anything official, and he wasn't about to let the idiot get him in trouble by proxy. "He had the codes to open the cell, but he's objecting to me being cuffed. What's going on, Ultra Magnus?"

There was a long pause, and Whirl glared up at him. If this got the bastard into trouble, Fort Max was going to feel _very_ smug.

_*"…Whirl."*_ Ultra Magnus was a mech of few words, but he used those words effectively. He packed castigation and a demand for explanation into one word.

"I changed my vote, alright?" Whirl snapped, pincers still on the cuffs. "I got Roddy to change his, too, so we're all agreed that Fort DumbMax here can go visit the guy who's head he blew off, and I need the slagging cuff codes!"

_*"Rodimus hasn't spoken to me about - "*_

"Then go ask him!"

The harried note in the Executive Officer's voice became more pronounced. _*"That is not possible at this time. If I might ask, what did you say to convince him to change his mind? He seemed rather set on his vote upon the last request."_

"Yeah, I bet it's not possible," Whirl muttered. "I told him it was a good **fragging** reason. He agreed." His tone turned snide. "You gonna tell me you disagree?"

The pause this time was odd. Then again, Whirl's bizarrely pointed swearing at the ship's Executive Officer was odd as well. Fortress Maximus was staring at the rotary mech as if he'd grown a sense of responsibility. Not only had Whirl outright sworn at Ultra Magnus, he's actually gone out of his way to emphasize the word. What was going on here?

_*"I…see. Yes. I can see the logic in that reason."*_ There was a strange sound in the background of the transmission. Fort Max's frown transferred to the console. That sounded like an engine revving. And what reason were they talking about?! _*"Bring Fortress Maximus to me immediately."*_ There was a short pause, and another deep grumble of overworked engines. _*"Leave the cuffs on. I will take them off myself_."*

"Yeah, I just bet you will," Whirl muttered as the transmission cut. "Rust my life. Didn't need any more complications." After sucking in a huge in-vent as if to calm himself, he blew it out in a supremely rude sound. "Fraggit! You!" He pointed a pincer up at Fort Max aggressively. Considering the ex-Wrecker's gangly build compared to the prison warden's, it was like watching a construct made of toothpicks face off with a brick. "You come with me, and no funny business! We've got to get from here," he pointed at the floor at their feet, "to nerd-bot's lab," he pointed to the left and downward, "and then all the way up to the bridge." The pincer swung upward and to the right. "At least, I think that's where Roddy was last." That single-optic head cocked to the side. "Huh. He's not answering comm.-calls. This's gonna be…huh. Well, whatever. We'll deal with finding him when we get around to it."

Typical Wrecker thinking. Planning ahead was for lesser mechs, in their logic. Fortress Maximus continued to be completely unimpressed by Whirl's gesticulations and yammering. "Ultra Magnus did just tell you to bring me," he sneered the words, because despite Whirl being far tougher than his build appeared, they both knew the warden was _letting_ himself be pulled toward the door, "to him. We should be reporting directly to him, not detouring to visit…" His optics flickered as he tried to narrow down exactly who qualified as a nerd in Whirl's very large book of inane appendages to mechs' proper designations.

"Perceptor," the rotary mech said curtly, still determinedly towing the bigger Autobot toward the door. "We need to grab Perceptor. Rodimus' orders," he snidely countered Fort Max's sneer. "The captain of a ship is ranked higher than X.O., last I checked. We need to bring Perceptor to the walking sharp object," the warden thought that meant Drift, "pry Roddy off his aft," wait, off his own aft or off of Drift's aft? Whirl didn't elaborate as he continued, "bring Roddy to Ultra Fragnus, and get the slagging cuffs unlocked before they get too busy so we can actually **do** something."

That had been entirely too confusing. Busy doing what? "What?" Not that he wanted to feed Whirl's idiocy, but seriously. What?

Whirl smacked the door open, and Trailbreaker and Pipes fell through to land on the floor in a tangled, writhing bundle of limbs stuck in entirely too private areas for a public setting. "Is the brig free?" Trailbreaker gasped from the bottom, middle, and at least one foot on top.

"Sure," Whirl said blandly, not ruffled in the slightest. "Since, y'know, **he's** out, now." He jerked his head at Fortress Maximus, who was trying not to gape at the pornographic display, and Pipes glanced up.

And screamed.

"Hey - oof! Ow." Trailbreaker flopped back to the floor as Pipes disappeared out the door. "Well, so much for that."

Fort Max stared at the empty doorway. "Did I..?"

"Shoot him, up close and personal? Yep." Whirl abandoned his handcuffed prisoner in favor of hauling Trailbreaker upright and briskly prodding him. "What're your fuel levels?"

The warden's staring transferred to the two smaller Autobots as Trailbreaker _leaned_ into Whirl, purring his motor. "Not low enough to not be still interested in using that brig cell," the black truck leered suggestively. His hands wandered down toward slender hips Fort Max could have done without noticing.

That "fragging" reason Whirl had given Rodimus and Ultra Magnus was starting to take on an ominously literal meaning.

"Has the whole ship gone mad?" the cuffed mech asked loudly, taking a step back.

"Got it in one," Whirl snapped back. "You! Hands off the goods, and drink this." He'd popped his cockpit and taken out a small cube of energon. "Ratchet's orders. Come **on**," that was addressed at Fort Max, "let's get out of here before he's done!"

The bigger mech let himself be led hurriedly past Trailbreaker, who seemed preoccupied chugging the cube. Preoccupied, that was, until he evidently spotted opportunity and grabbed it with his free hand.

"Yiipe!"

Whirl paused in the hallway after the door closed to tilt his head and give Fortress Maximus a quizzical look. "Did you really just…?"

"He **pinched** my **aft**," the warden defended himself, trying not to show exactly how flustered he suddenly was. He was allowed to be startled by that! "What is going on here?!"

The demand was met with a resigned shrug. "Walk and talk, come on." The pull on the cuffs was lackluster, and Whirl dropped his hold on the cuffs to trot ahead of the larger Autobot. His head swung from side to side, and he looked like a reconnaissance mech scouting unknown territory. Which was ridiculous, because Whirl had been onboard this ship longer than Fortress Maximus had. "So, you know all the fluffy feel-good stuff Roddy spouts? Peace, love, getting along with other races, all that slag. Well, yeah, could'a called this one, but that came around to bite us." They came to an intersection, and the ex-Wrecker crept up the wall like the intersecting corridor was full of rabid sparkeaters waiting to tear him apart. Bemused, Fort Max just stood there with his cuffed hands in front of himself, watching. Whirl ducked out to quickly check both ways before waving them onward. "Some kind of virus. Got into the ship's comm. suite, and suddenly everyone's interface drives are going overclocked. Nobody can think straight, nobody can **walk** straight." He chuckled cruelly, apparently at some perverse memory. "I've seen things in the last two days that'll get me free drinks for years in any bar I care to walk in to."

"That doesn't make any sense," the warden said, unconsciously lowering his voice to match Whirl's low tone. "Ratchet could counter any virus. He's famous for his ability to manufacture cures for the impossible." After watching Ratchet synthesis a cure for the Red Rust from a tiny vial of countervirus while the medic's optics bled rust and his hands fell apart, Fortress Maximus sort of believed every rumor about the doctor's miraculous abilities. "If nothing else, just shutting down the communication suite - "

"In order, he's fragged up, too, and it was too late by the time anybody figured out how everyone got infected." Whirl's optic had a great emotional expression range. It gave the impression of grimacing as the rotary mech crept up on another intersection. "Look, you **aren't** my first choice. Not even in the top ten. Frag, I'd have taken the Decepticon over you. Buuuuuut," he peered around the corner, "I've been pulling emergency medical duty for a day and half. Ratchet's just barely got it together enough to give me orders about, y'know, savin' lives." He popped his cockpit again and reached in to take out two small, potent energon cubes. Fort Max started to step forward, eyeing them and wondering what was around the corner, but Whirl tick-tocked his free pincer at the cuffed mech. "Don't. You don't want to see these two like this." He glanced around the corner and took out another cube. "Whoa. Three." That just increased curiosity all around, but the warden was still playing a good prisoner. He stopped obediently. Whirl put the cubes on the floor and scooted them around the corner with his foot. "Fuel up!"

"Come join us!"

"No!" Whirl took another peek and went stiff right before whipping around and sprinting past Fortress Maximus, hauling the big Autobot after him by the cuffs. "Run for it!"

His sense of urgency was real enough. The warden humored him for two more hallways. "Who was that?" he asked when they finally slowed back down to Whirl's long-legged lope. "I don't know many mechs by their voices alone on this ship."

Whirl looked back. "You sure you want to know?"

Fortress Maximus scowled. "Why would I ask otherwise?"

"It was Steeljaw and Sunstreaker." The ex-Wrecker hesitated oddly. "And Bob."

The gold, vain frontliner and, er, Blaster's technimal Cassette? Awkward physical compatibility at best. The last mech's name, however, he didn't recognize. "Who?"

"Uh…find out later. Mission first." Suddenly all business, Whirl trotted faster. Fortress Maximus frowned and strode after him. "So, right, where was I…oh. Okay, so everyone's so busy 'facing each other into the floors and walls that they're not remembering to refuel. I've been molested so many times trying to save these ungrateful smelt-waste gearsticks' lives," the smaller Autobot muttered as he trotted along. "I can't keep doing this. You're gonna help me put a stop to it."

The warden squinted suspiciously at Whirl. This sounded far too insane to be real life. An interfacing virus? Whirl forcibly fueling everyone? Whirl trying to save the day?

They came up on another intersection. Whirl didn't slow this time. He just hopped over the entwined pair snogging in the middle, stopping just long enough to nudge a couple of cubes into otherwise-occupied hands. Fortress Maximus uncomfortably looked away as Rewind and Chromedome immediately began feeding each other, still cooing and affectionately staring visor-to-visor. The hardline links were a bit hard to miss, since Chromedome was stroking Rewind's cables with his long injector-needles and Rewind was actually wrapped in Chromedome's main cable.

One or the other of them managed to free a hand to stroke Fort Max's ankle as he carefully stepped over them. His stride hitched for just a second.

"They're probably the least pushy couple onboard," Whirl grumped, still loping forward. "Beware of threesome or moresomes. They're grabby, and they've got far too many hands to get you with."

…right. Probably good advice.

Good advice from Whirl. The world _had_ gone mad.

"Two questions," Fort Max grunted, lengthening his stride to catch up. "One, why me? And two, what am I supposed to help you with?"

"Two answers," the ex-Wrecker snarked back. "One, duh. You're the one who's supposed to be the prison warden. What's the first thing disabled after weapons' systems when a mech's thrown into a cell?"

Ah. "Interface drive."

"Whole piece of hardware gets shut off," Whirl agreed. "You're just as infected as everyone else, but the virus is dormant."

"But why aren't **you** - "

"**Not** that it's any of your business," the ex-Wrecker's voice sizzled with acid, "but I never bothered to get my interface drive switched back on after Garrus-1."

It was such a non-surprise that Whirl had been incarcerated on Garrus-1 that Fort Max only snorted contempt. Then the rest of the statement caught up with him, and the warden stopped short. "You **what**? That's insane!" Short term, deactivating an interface drive prevented a shipload of prisoner problems. On a longer-term scale for longer sentences, there were steps that had to be taken to prevent psychological damage. Interface drives weren't just for sex. They were physical pressure valves and social interaction on an intimate level that every Cybertronian needed, even the only release a mech got was self-service. It was still an integral part of a living being that couldn't just be _cut out_. Choosing not to use an active array was one thing, but to leave it deactivated for _millions of years_?!

Of all the things to leap to mind, the first thing out of the warden's mouth was, "Does Rung know?"

The ex-Wrecker reached back and yanked on the cuffs impatiently. "Not your business."

"This explains so slagging much about you." He reluctantly started walking again. So much. No wonder the ex-Wrecker was a walking nutjob.

"Still not your business." Whirl shook his head and started jogging. "It's not like I miss it, anyway. You want insane? You'll see insane, trust me." He laughed bitterly. "Never seen mechs go so crazy as they do when they're desperate for a frag. It's killing them, now, and they're still so busy gettin' it on that they can't care. So you're gonna help me by holding down mechs while I figure out how to shut off their hardware, too."

That almost made sense. Something was definitely wrong. "You don't know how to do it?"

"Not a clue." Whirl shrugged and skittered across an intersection quickly. Fortress Maximus looked down the hallway and wished he hadn't. That looked like a Minibot pileup on top of someone who seemed _very_ happy. The sounds kind of echoed down the corridor, but yeah. That sounded happy. "Thing is, I lost Ratchet about a joor ago, and Ambulon was ordering First Aid, Swerve, and Brainstorm around before I got the slag out of there."

"But - "

"Not those kind of orders. **Those** kind of orders. I had to short out some restraints of my own to get loose." The ex-Wrecker's stabilizers shivered. "Mech's got organizational skills comin' out his ports, and now he's got other things, too." Another shiver, and then Whirl visibly dismissed the memory. "See, I could knock out mechs left and right, but whenever I think I'm safe, somebody finds me and starts feeling me up. They've got numbers on their side. Nobody's around to repair anybody I crack upside the head too hard. **And** I'm still trying to keep everybody fueled up, which is the most thankless job I've ever had. That includes the time - "

"I'll take your word for it," Fort Max interrupted rudely, too shaken up to care much about the obnoxious twit's ramblings. The information he was pulling from Whirl's scrambled mess of a debriefing was disturbing, to say the least. "You want me to hold down mechs so you can shut down their interface drives."

"And guard my back, and deliver cubes, and oh shove Primus in the Pit, you are the **randiest** one of the bunch!" Whirl came to a dead stop, glaring down the hall at…really?

There was a tiny Minibot was kneeling in the middle of the corridor. Fort Max stopped behind his, er, escort and blinked. The little 'bot was white and blue and curvy in places the warden was used to seeing sharp edges and blocky altmode kibble. It was an usual sight, maybe even an exotic one. The mech was, dare he say it, rather adorable. Perhaps especially because of the way he was on his knees, hands demurely folded together on those luxuriously rounded thighs. They just didn't make models with class like that anymore.

He was in a vulnerable, submissive position only enhanced by the way he blinked that wide blue visor up at the two Autobots looming over him. "Who, me?"

"Yes, you!" Whirl edged backward, putting Fortress Maximus between him and the plushly curved Minibot. "You can't fool me!" His voice dropped to a resentful mutter. "More than once, anyway."

A small engine hummed softly, and the kneeling Autobot looked all the way up at Fort Max. "Oh. Hello. Have I met you?"

"Only in passing," the warden answered roughly, taking a cautious step forward. As much as he knew better than to believe appearances, this little mech was far too harmlessly cute to inspire fear in him. For pity's sake, Fortress Maximus could likely pick him up and hold him in his cupped hands. It was kind of tempting, honestly. He sort of wanted to pick the innocent Minibot up, cuddle him, and protect him against the rest of the clearly insane ship's crew. There was just something about the way that visor sparkled and…and the way those smooth thighs were parting, and those teensy hands were sliding down to dip into gaps and do obscene things to the wires and cables lewdly exposed underneath…

"I'm - uh. I'm Fortress Maximus. You're Tailgate, correct?" he finished somewhat weaker than he'd started.

Whirl poked him in the tread. "Keep walking!"

"Yes," Tailgate said breathily, fingers twisting deftly as he rocked into his own hands. "Oh, yes. I'm Tailgate, and you're just the right size for what I'm thinking a name like Fortress Maximus implies about a mech. Come here and show me what you're the maximum of." He rose up on his knees, hands dragging up the inside of his thighs to come up and fondle his chest. "I'll show you what **my** name means."

One of Fort Max's optics twitched wider than the other. _What._

"Ack!"

The warden stumbled forward and turned, suddenly shoved from behind. Whirl flailed again, but Cyclonus had him well and truly pinned.

In a hug. "Whirl," the Decepticon rasped, biting at the rotary mech's antenna hard enough to scrape peels of metal off. "Hate sex appeals to me. If I happen to kill you, it would be a better fate than what I originally planned for you."

Whirl's expressive optic conveyed horror deeper than mere words could say. "Do. Not. **Want!**"

"Do not care," Cyclonus snarled back, claws scraping across his enemy's body to violate sensitive areas in most unwelcome ways.

Fort Max jumped, startled by an unwelcome touch on his own body. Slightly wild-opticked, he looked down to see Tailgate all but plastered against his leg, molesting as best he can considering their height difference. The Minibot looked ready to start climbing him, however. "Ah. Tailgate? I would prefer that you not…your attentions are flattering but not something I'm interested in."

"Reason doesn't work with a virus!" Whirl barked, struggling with all four limbs and not getting anywhere. His rotary assemblies were creating enough of a windstorm to send Cyclonus staggering back against the wall for balance, and Tailgate might have been in trouble if he weren't vacuum-sealed to Fortress Maximus' lower leg. "Leggo! Do not want! Help! Rape!...oh, Primus, I can't believe I have to say this slag…"

"That's a - **no!** Please don't touch that!" Fort Max hesitated warily before bending down and plucking Tailgate from his leg with his cuffed hands. It was the obvious solution. The Minibot let go easily, which should have been a warning sign.

"Off! Off off off off ack no off! Not the cockpit! Claws off the glass!" There were screeching, scratchy noises indicating that Cyclonus was not listening to Whirl's protests at all.

The warden suddenly had a ball of richly, almost erotically curved Autobot absolutely wrapped around his hands, writhing through his palms like he'd been greased as the sleek curves gave no purchase for a good grip. The mech's whole frame shimmied as he rubbed and wriggled, burring that small engine in rampant arousal. Tiny white hands manipulated one of Fort Max's much larger fingers into a hot, electricity-spitting gap that just _dripped_ charge. Tailgate revved harder and worked that finger in and out, visor bright as he reveled in the sensation.

"Whirl!" Well, that was a thoroughly undignified bleat for help.

But what else was he supposed to do? Throw the Minibot down? Whirl had already said the medics were indisposed. Tailgate clearly wasn't in control of his own actions. Anything more than self-defense would get put down on his record and count toward his brig sentence. Fortress Maximus couldn't do more than try to push the determined little mech away, but with his hands cuffed like this, it was stupidly ineffectual. It also made Tailgate cry out loudly and arch in ways that would usually grab the intense interest of a certain piece of every mech's anatomy. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Tailgate's target didn't currently have that piece activated.

Right, no more pushing.

"Hold **gah!**" Whirl yelped. "Hold on. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have no leverage whatsoever, so I hope you're prepared for how loud I can shriek in disgust." There were clanks and grunts, and suddenly there was a kicking mass of blue and purple tumbling across the floor. "Cyc! Look at the pretty Minibot! Hot 'bot alert! Look at him! He's ready to go and everything!"

Fort Max felt like a dirty slagger for helpfully holding out his double handful of Tailgate, but it did catch the deep red pits of Cyclonus' optics. The Decepticon looked up like a hunter catching the scent of willing prey. It probably helped that Tailgate's present position was showing off a quite delectable tiny aft that bobbed and weaved as the warden kept trying to free his finger. Cyclonus' attention visibly fixated on the Minibot. Twin flares of red light reflected off that shiny white aft.

"Here, have him!" the warden urged, voice high-pitched and funny as his captured fingertip brushed against something he was going to have trouble forgetting.

"Yesssss," Cyclonus growled. "Tailgate."

Miracle of miracles, the lusty little Autobot actually paused and looked up. He reset his visor, and Fortress Maximus was surprised when the giddy brightness dimmed to a downright sultry glow. "Cyclonus." Letting go with one hand, the small mech leaned toward his habitation suitemate and made a _come hither_ curl with his fingers. "Come here, Cyclonus."

Whirl surged up from the floor, grabbed Tailgate in one pincer and Cyclonus' remaining helm-horn with the other, and shoved them together. "Psycho Decepticon, meet tiny ancient guy. Tiny ancient guy, frag him until he's sane again. I am holding this over your head **forever**," he informed his assailant.

Cyclonus had dismissed him from his world the moment a better interface came into it, it seemed. Whirl was ignored in favor of a far more enthusiastic playmate. Tailgate got thrown down to the floor and explored with wide palms and sharp claws.

Right up until Tailgate planted his feet against the Decepticon's midriff and flipped him up over his head to land with a terrible clatter. Quick as Blurr, the randy Minibot rolled upright and pounced the larger mech. There was a brief struggle, but it seemed Tailgate could hold his own at hand-to-hand, at least when his opponent was completely distracted by what exactly those hands were holding. After a flurry of moves and counter-moves, they just moved together.

Fort Max gaped, backing away. It wasn't so much that Tailgate was topping a notorious Decepticon. It was just the cumulative strangeness kicking him in the cortex all at once.

"See why I wanted the cuffs free?" Whirl spat, pulling at the warden's arm as he slid down the wall past the enthusiastic interface happening right then and there. Foreplay was a thing of the past. "Come on, before they decide we should join them."

Red optics and a blue visor flared and looked up.

Fortress Maximus and Whirl exchanged a panicked look and ran for it.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Fortress Maximus - "First time"_

**[* * * * *]**

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**Warning: here there be the continuation of the Overlord-leaves-Garrus-9 AU.**

Not the expander. He couldn't take the expander again, not so soon after last time. His jaw still ached from being unlocked. Overlord had been in no hurry to pop the joints back into place when his pet learned so quickly from physical demonstrations. Fortress Maximus had learned _very_ quickly with his jaw unhinged and hanging open, oral fluid dribbling off his chin and Overlord taking suggestions from the nearest Decepticon base for what should be shoved down his intake next. The gross distortion of his intake valve had been bad enough, the popped joint painful, but the real lesson had been taught by the laughter broadcast around the small ship. Overlord had let the nearest bases watch the ex-warden helplessly drool, and the shame had ground the lesson in deep.

So Fortress Maximus parted his lips and tried to relax his intake. He kept his optics downcast, not wanting to see the cruel smile he knew was curving Overlord's lips. He was broken, not masochistic.

A swallow worked his throat tubing as thick fingers came up to stroke his chin. "Oh ho. Now you'll obey?" Overlord leaned down, forcing the Autobot's head up with a hard pinch to the chin. "No, Maxy," he said in the ex-warden's face, tone mild but optics flinty. "That's not how this works. I give an order, and you obey it. No hesitation, no repetitions, no second chances. You didn't obey, and now you'll face the consequences." His other hand held up the small set of hydraulics that'd fit in the back of his pet's jaw if forced.

The big Autobot cringed. Not the expander!

He whimpered, hating the weak sound but knowing it pleased Overlord immensely to hear it. He even tipped his head to the side, pushing the side of his face against the larger mech's hand in a sick parody of affection. He rubbed and nudged, begging without words because his mouth was still open, he'd obeyed, _he'd obeyed!_

Hope hurt the worst, but it always did when Overlord retaught a lesson. Fortress Maximus knew better than to hold onto even a smidgeon of it, but there had been just a few times when amusement motivated the Decepticon to show a fraction of mercy. Perhaps those instances were just calculated to add to the terrible pressure stomping his pet's will flat. Knowing Overlord? Almost certainly so.

But yet Fort Max couldn't stop himself from offering his open mouth, whining eagerly when Overlord's unoccupied hand slipped in. The fingers touching every surface in his mouth weren't new. They prodded the sensors lining the roof of his mouth, attempted to wiggle his denta in their sockets, and pressed down on his glossa. That hands-on glossa depressor was the only thing that stopped him from continuing to lap and lick and chase those fingers with his glossa. He still closed his lips to suck hard on the two fingers and the thumb holding his glossa down.

This, he'd been well-trained to do. He was thoroughly degraded by how routine it seemed at this point, but at least he wasn't punished for reluctance anymore.

It was the swipe of a finger over the back of his mouth that was new. His intake aperture spasmed, but he made it relax. He could do this. He could take it.

Frag him, he wanted it. He opened his mouth wider and whined again, pushing his face forward into the fingers tracing over the thin metal of the valve itself. He wanted it. Really, he did. Please, he did. He'd obeyed. He'd be obedient. He could take it.

Overlord's hand withdrew, and a tiny sound of fear and despair leaked out after it.

"Now, let's see just who's in range." Overlord smiled benignly as his pet shuddered but kept that naughty mouth open. Too little, too late. "It's about time I gave your personal cheerleader a call. What word of encouragement will he entertain me with today?" Wide optics shot to his face and away again as Fort Max wrestled himself back into stoic surrender. "Springer should take notes. He's promised to reenact on me every torment I've inflicted on you, but, hmm." He pretended to think that over. "I believe he's missed seeing quite a few. I'll have to think of a new one just for him this time."

The massive Phase Sixer leaned down and tenderly took Fortress Maximus' willingly opened mouth in a slow kiss. The Autobot's intakes convulsed, trying not to retch, and Overlord took from his mouth directly the sobbed, involuntary noises of a mech's destroyed pride. His mouth tasted like terror.

Overlord chuckled as he drew away. "Now, as for the expander…"

The Autobot whimpered again and kept his mouth open.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Tailgate - "gifts"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

It started with a free drink.

Well, technically all drinks for Tailgate were free. Rodimus had granted him a small allowance, hiring him as the "Ship's Antique" out of a fit of generosity tempered by pity and his questionable sense of humor. Rung, who'd been behind their young captain at the time, had put a hand over his mouth until he could control his expression . Tailgate still wasn't sure if the older mech had been smothering irritation or amusement. He himself wobbled between annoyance and gratitude.

For a mech his age, he really wasn't that _old_ Being called an antique by Ratchet had stung a little, but being officially labeled that by Rodimus was kind of mean. Seriously, he'd been in and out of consciousness for a few million years; he hadn't actually _lived_ all that time. Cyclonus was as old as he was physically, but the grouchy purple warrior had actually lived the time.

Anyway, he didn't say anything to Rodimus about it because he kind of needed the tiny credit allowance the, uh, 'job' gave him. He hadn't exactly been poor when he'd signed on to the original _Ark_ mission, but that'd been before civil war collapsed the bank system and economy in one long, terrible go. His credits were long gone.

Tailgate limited himself, saving what he could. It seemed like reasonable money management was a rarity - he was looking at half the crew on that one - but apparently the 'live as if you won't see tomorrow' war mentality was still in place. Well, he intended to see tomorrow. Therefore, he saved his credits. He gave them to Ultra Magnus to invest, as the Duly Appointed Enforcer had access to the Enforcer Fund. The investment's total gain would be slow, but steady. Apparently, the Enforcer Fund was one of the few Cybertronian investments the galactic community as a whole would trade on.

The blue mech didn't like to think on that. He clearly remembered a time when the galactic community had fought for access to Cybertronian credits.

In any case, having his credits invested meant that he was limited to one drink at Swerve's bar when he did go. The money he had just wasn't enough for more. He was fine with that! Really! He hadn't been one for much drinking before waking up, and the heavy-duty energon everyone else was used to by now tasted, er…no offense to Swerve or anything, but even distilled, the resulting engex still tasted like swill. One glass was about all Tailgate could stand before it felt like the stuff started to scour his intake tubing.

So to take it beyond the free drink, it really started with Cyclonus. Because like that was news?

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" Tailgate asked, trying to project warmth toward his hab suite's sullen co-occupant. "Just for a while?"

"I do not wish to accompany you anywhere," Cyclonus stated coldly.

The warmth faltered a bit. "O-oh."

The purple warrior looked up from the desk where he was sharpening his claws. The pinpricks of red optical light skewered Tailgate with a contemptuous glare. "Why do you persist in asking me about such inanities? I have not, nor will I ever agree to voluntarily be in your company. Cease your pestering and leave me in peace."

Red optics looked back to their work, and maybe if Tailgate had been anyone else, he'd have been offended and hurt enough to 'take a hint,' as Whirl so charmingly put it. But Tailgate was only Tailgate, and Tailgate saw things in the _Lost Light_ as no one else could. The history attached to every single person he met didn't warp his vision one way or another.

He looked across the habitation suite at the proud warrior whom the whole Primal Vanguard had regarded as a hero of Cybertron, and he saw loneliness, bitterness, and anger wrapped around an unbroken spark. He saw power and control never misused, and an honor code from times he'd freshly woken up from himself. Sure, Cyclonus was a Decepticon and older than Tailgate really was, impatient with the Bomb Disposal expert's naiveté and constant attempts to draw him into the company of Autobots. That didn't change the fact that he hadn't moved out of the hab suite he shared with the little mech.

Cyclonus was a bluntly honest mech when he cared to be. Probably the only lie he told himself was that he didn't want Tailgate's company.

And usually Tailgate would cheerfully pop up by his elbow, say something that'd dig that point in, and skedaddle off to Swerve's bar before the warrior could muster more than a furious huff. By the time he'd get back, Cyclonus would have rationalized his grumpy dismissal of all things Tailgate all over again, and they'd repeat the cycle the next time.

This time, however, Tailgate just looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet before turning to leave. He didn't say anything, and he didn't turn back to see the red optics look up suddenly as the door began to close. He just walked slowly way down the corridor.

It was something Rung had said to him, in that gentle conversational tone he took with his patients. Tailgate didn't feel like he needed psychotherapy, but he _did_ need some history lessons. He was catching up on millions of years of his planet and people combusting in civil war. As much fun as movie nights with Rewind were, the information he got from scheduling sessions with Rung tended to be more reliable. It helped that Rung had been a respected therapist long before his time. It made him kind of intimidating in that scarily-smart way some mechs had, but Tailgate liked him anyway.

Unfortunately, Rung had a habit of getting to the heart of matters that the blue Bomb Disposal expert had been trying to not think about.

"You do realize almost every friend you had is long dead?" the psychotherapist had asked, kind and sad. "I can count on both hands the number of mechs from my generation that survived the war." His absurd optical ridges lowered slightly. "I don't know how many made it from yours, but statistically speaking…the likelihood of any of your circle of acquaintances surviving approaches zero."

Urk.

Tailgate had found himself in sudden, urgent need of a stiff drink or five.

Getting rejected by Cyclonus - again - had only made the need more pressing. He was going to go to Swerve's bar, and he was going to drown sorrows deeper than any Ultra Magnus' horrid regulations had inspired.

So he hopped up on a stool and sucked down his first drink. And that's about when he actually checked his credit balance.

Fraaaaaaag.

"Here," Swerve said, sliding a mug of engex to knock against the top of Tailgate's helm. That was currently the only part of him available, as the blue Minibot's face was planted firmly on the bar. "End of the paycheck, eh?" He'd had customers in the whole cycle sourly muttering about having to cut out early. Half the bar was nursing their drinks to make them last.

A dim blue visor peeked upward. "Yes," Tailgate muttered, and the bartender had never heard the perpetually-upbeat mech sound so miserable. "I'm broke. Sorry." He poked a finger at the mug, sliding it back across the bartop. "I can't pay."

Swerve firmly pushed it back. "It's on the house. Mech, you look like you need it!"

That got Tailgate's head off the bar real quick. "B-but I can't pay!" He tried to push it back, looking a little flustered. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just, um, feeling my age. Swerve!" The mug had been pushed back in front of him. Swerve was pretending to polish things, studiously ignoring any and all attempts to give him back the drink. Sometimes a mech knew when talking was merely a delaying tactic. "But…" Tailgate looked between bartender and drink. "But I can't…I haven't the money."

"It's already mixed," Swerved proclaimed. "Can't put it back in the tanks, so drink up."

Putting it that way really just made Tailgate feel guilty. Both for refusing the free drink and not paying in the first place, which made him feel terribly conflicted. He turned the mug around in his hands and gave a tiny nod. "Okay. But, um, if you're giving me something, then I have to give you something back."

"What?" Swerve's moment of triumph over the surprisingly stubborn "Ship's Antique" became confusion. "Why would you do that?"

Tailgate blinked at him, taken aback by his surprise. "You mean that's not a custom anymore? Every gift must be reciprocated, or it puts the gift-taker in the gift-giver's debt. I mean, it's only a ritual. It doesn't actually have to be a big expensive return gift, but it's the symbolism that - " The big blue visor blinked again as Swerve put his hands up. "That's really not done anymore?"

"Is this another 'back in my day' custom?" The bartender leaned on the bartop, sweeping the room with an automatic customer-check. Nope, everyone was still miserly nursing along their drinks. "Because I don't think I get this one. If I give you a present, I give you a present. No strings attached, Tailgate."

The Bomb Disposal expert looked down into his mug and took a sip from the ridiculously curly straw, but Swerve still heard him mumble something. It sounded like, "There are always strings attached."

"No, seriously." He propped an arm in front of Tailgate and pointed a finger at the drink. "It's just a drink. I own the place, y'know? You don't have to pay me anything for it if I say you don't."

That got a sigh. "It's a social transaction. Every interaction between two mechs can be broken down into give and take. I just don't like having the transaction scale weighted toward debt." Tailgate shrugged when Swerve's face screwed up in a revolted expression. "I know, I know. It's not a popular social theory, but it's the one I was taught when it comes to material gifts. I can't just cast off everything from the past overnight!"

Ah. That had been a tad bit…loud. Inappropriately so.

Tailgate sank low on his stool, well aware that the whole bar was now staring at him.

"O-kaaaay," Swerve said warily, palms flat on the bartop as he leaned away from the unexpectedly feisty old-timer. "Uh. So. If you want to give me something, I, uh, guess I'm okay with that."

The little blue 'bot seized on the offer, relieved. "Great! What do you want?"

"Whatever you want to give me?"

Tailgate just looked at him. That had been the singularly most unhelpful answer possible. Swerve beamed back, oblivious. It made the blue mech want to bean him with the mug. Which was empty, now. Huh. When had he finished it? Oh well. It'd been very nice of Swerve to give him the free drink, and now Tailgate had to think of something to reciprocate with.

Oh! Of course. Well, if he was giving free lessons about old customs tonight, he might as well make them hands-on.

"It's not really traditional, per se," Tailgate said softly, pushing himself up until he was kneeling on his stool, "but I used to exchange these with my friends when we gave each other gifts. Come here, Swerve." He beckoned the loudmouth closer.

"What, are you gonna punch me one?" Swerve was far too good-natured to hold a grudge if that were true. He'd probably earned it somehow. He grinned widely and leaned across the counter to meet his friend halfway. "Don't hit the mouth, eh? I like my smile. It's my best feat-ahh? Oh."

Tailgate's hands reached him first, parting to hold his jawline tenderly between them. Gratitude and a faint overtone of amusement soaked into Swerve's metal from them, projected strongly as Tailgate touched his face mask to the side of the small Autobot's wide mouth. He nuzzled sweetly before turning his head slightly to brush cheeks with him. Their helms clanged together quietly. The blue mech's fingertips were cradling Swerve's chin, and the dim-visored mech obediently turned his head where they gently pushed. His shock-slackened mouth got another nuzzle on the opposite side, and another brush of the cheek. Then Tailgate turned his face back forward to press the top of his mask to Swerve's nose first and forehelm second.

"Thank you for the gift," he whispered to his friend, slurring just slightly as the engex started to hit his tanks. Woo, that was stronger than usual stuff. His tubes were going to be stripped to the rubber. He carefully sat back down in his stool, folded his hands on the bar, and blinked innocently at Swerve. "Was that okay?"

It took a moment for Swerve to remember where he'd left his jaw. It seemed to have relocated itself to the bartop.

"Y-yeah," he sputtered when he recovered enough, hands flailing a bit. "Just fine! More than okay! Uh. You want another drink?"

The empty mug got a considering look. "Um, no. I'm good for now, I think." The bright blue visor went a little dark, and a ripple of guilt went through the pleasantly light shimmer of Tailgate's electromagnetic field. He avoided looking at Swerve. He felt bad taking advantage of Swerve's pity. He felt a little better now, anyway. He didn't need another drink, not really. "Thank you again, Swerve."

"My pleasure," the bartender said on automatic. The server drone buzzed for his attention, but he hesitated a second to reach over the bar to give his buddy a pat on the shoulder. "Feel better, right? You let me know when you're ready for another round."

"Alright." He kept his visor down as the cheerful Autobot went to the other end of the bar to fill the drone's collected drink orders and chat with other customers. Notably Skids, who was looking in Tailgate's direction speculatively. The small blue mech looked away, ashamed that he'd been caught staring at anyone. He went back to doodling pictures on the bartop with a tiny bit of spilled engex. He felt better, yeah, but that wasn't saying much. Primus, all his friends were dead. That was a lot of people.

He'd gone through the Iaconian University three times. He'd come out each time with another degree and a whole crop of new friends and contacts. The university faculty in six different departments had greeted him by name. He'd been a guest lecturer more than once. Now, the students, faculty, _and_ university were gone. Obliterated.

He'd been part of the physical arena, competing in the inter-guard matches for placement in the Primal Vanguard's championship rankings. Sure, he'd picked a less physically strenuous combat specialty, but everyone had respected him for choosing to go into Bomb Disposal. There were no survivors of failure in Bomb Disposal; mechs either succeeded or died. Mechs in Bomb Disposal had ball bearing diameters that the medibay had to special-order, they were so large. It'd made every mech in the division closer than spark-twins. He suddenly missed them so much it _ached_.

He'd counseled Nova Prime. He'd been included in some of the greatest scientific and philosophical breakthroughs of his time. He'd dropped his entire life to join the _Ark_ crew, and that'd been an act of selfless courage back in his day.

'Of his time' and 'back in his day' being the key phrases, there. These times weren't his time, and weren't the times of anyone of his time. Just look at Cyclonus. It seemed all the mech could remember were better times long past. Even Rung seemed isolated, forever waiting in his timeless office for those who needed him.

Tailgate heaved a painfully huge sigh and shifted over to prop his helm up on one hand. He discovered that he'd been absentmindedly doodling frowny faces. So much for feeling better.

A glowing blue drink abruptly slid onto his drawing space. "What the..? Swerve, no!" he protested, looking up. The protest was half-sparked, however.

Swerve's deceptively guileless visor took in the bleak expression on his friend's masked face and threw said half-sparked protest out the nearest window. Mech needed about three more drinks before the bartender would start believing that he didn't actually want another. "Too late," he informed the blue 'bot. "See Skids over there?" He pointed, and Tailgate turned to look. Skids lazily saluted with two fingers. "Skids there bought you a drink. So drink."

"But I - oh dear." White hands fussed at nothing, patting down his thigh compartments for credits he no longer had. "Oh, I can't!"

"I told him about you little gift custom," Swerve went on, ruthlessly cutting off that angle of retreat. Of course he had. He couldn't have stopped himself even if Skids hadn't specifically asked about it. "He's okay with it. He just thought you'd appreciate a free drink right now."

"I do, but - " Tailgate floundered for words. "I mean, does he really know what I - no, it's not that I **don't** appreciate it, but he didn't need to - I - " Thoroughly flustered, the blue Minibot's scattered thoughts finally slid to a jumbled halt. "…do I really look that bad?" he asked after sitting quietly for a moment stewing in embarrassment and the tiniest hint of gratification that anyone had noticed his mood.

"Weeeeell," Swerve drew out, "I wasn't going to **say** anything," he totally was, "but yeah, you look kinda rough tonight. You wanna talk about it?" Him, hoping for gossip? Perish the thought. He was mostly hoping to help his friend out, with the possibility of gossip lurking on the side.

Actually, he was really just looking for an excuse to hang out around the smaller Autobot right now. Because of reasons. Yeah.

Tailgate's visor flushed brilliant blue, and the little Bomb Disposal expert looked down into the drink as if looking for a polite way to excuse himself from life. "No. I mean, well, I mean no. But it's not because of you. I just…no, okay?" He helplessly looked back up at Swerve, pleading with him to understand. This was hard for him to deal with on his own. As much as he liked Swerve, however, the mech wasn't exactly the most tactful of friends when it came to life advice.

Swerve blinked back at him. Tailgate decided retreat was the better part of valor and slid out of his stool hurriedly, taking the drink with him. "I'll just go thank Skids, shall I?"

The bartender continued to watch him, struck a little dumb by how fragging cute he suddenly found the small blue mech's…everything. Everything sounded about right. Although as he watched those rounded thighs and pert aft hustle down the bar, 'cute' wasn't the only description he found himself applying to his friend. Huh.

"Where's my head been at?" he asked himself, crossing his arms and furrowing his brows as he watched Skids lean down to collect the universe's sweetest little nuzzles and cheek-rubs from Tailgate. How had he _not_ noticed how absolutely lovable his friend was?

"On your shoulders, I'd say," Whirl said from behind him, and Swerve just about jumped over the bar in surprise. "Hey, what's with the snuggling?"

Skids had scooped the little Bomb Disposal expert up onto the closest barstool, stealing a hug on the way. Tailgate seemed embarrassed by the attention and bent over his drink. At the rate he was sucking it down, Swerve would have to bring him another right quick. Then again, from the way Skids was hovering near him as they talked, Tailgate probably wouldn't be the one ordering it.

"Tailgate's got this old-style gift-giving ritual thing he insists on doing," Swerve explained to Whirl, not really caring if the ex-Wrecker followed what he meant. "Skids bought him a drink. He's just, y'know, paying him back, I guess."

"Heh. Hey, old-timer!" Whirl bellowed across the bar, and everyone who'd been covertly eyeing the adorable sight of Tailgate getting steadily more uninhibited and responsive to Skids' attention turned to scowl at the crude behavior. The rotary mech blithely ignored their disapproval. "What's a mech got to give you to get that ritual into his berth?"

Tailgate turned on his stool and shot back, utterly deadpan, "His hab suite number."

Dead silence filled the bar. Even Whirl was struck speechless.

"And that," the 'tiny ancient dude' (as Skids had once dubbed him) announced after a second of intense concentration, "probably means I've met my limit for the night. I think I just propositioned Whirl," he said as an aside to Skids. "Have I been drinking too fast?" He looked into his third drink, which was considerably larger than his first but just as empty. "I've been drinking far too fast. You'd think I'd know better after the time I took apart a cycled-nitrogen engine and put it back together as the idealized heat engine. I mean, only as a prototype," he admitted frankly as if he needed to tack on a warning to future scientists that building in an inebriated state wasn't wise. Public service announcement Tailgate. "I didn't invent it by myself, and I **certainly** couldn't have finished it while overcharged, but slaggit, the company was excellent and the conversation better and it seemed like a good idea at the time and - well, you're not Nova Prime," his visor glittered up at Skids as the bar murmured, "but I like you anyway. I think I need to leave before I build something. Or proposition you, too."

He slid from his barstool and turned to see Whirl advancing down the bar toward him. The big ex-Wrecker was ignoring whatever Swerve was trying to hiss at him. "I'm really not interested, honestly," Tailgate decided firmly, stomping his foot down and folding his arms. "As everyone on this blasted ship has delighted in telling me again and again and **again**," the bar murmured louder, and mechs avoided each others' optics as that hit home, "I am old. Therefore, allow me my old-fashioned values. I am not," the little blue mech held up a finger and hiccupped his vents. "Right. I am not looking for my conjunx endura. I am not looking for best friends. I'm **really** not looking for single-frag flings. What **this** 'old timer' is looking for," in the first aggressive move anyone in the bar had ever seen him make, Tailgate jerked a thumb at his own chest, "is a few mechs as good at giving and taking as they used to be back in my day!"

His voice had gone high and nasal on the last four words, as if he were mocking the sheer number of times he'd had to tack that on to what he said since waking up.

He held the edge-of-angry pose for a moment, but the moment passed. The small, old-but-not mech slumped, looking tired. "But I guess that's just not how it is these days," he uttered in the direction of the floor before turning and walking steadily for the door. "Everyone have a good night."

"Tailgate..?" Later, nobody was sure if it were Swerve or Skids who'd spoken, but it didn't matter much. Skids had jumped up from his stool to get a hold on Whirl and stop the ex-Wrecker. Whirl wasn't fighting him. Swerve was standing behind the bar looking a little bewildered.

Tailgate stopped in the doorway, one hand holding the door open. "It's okay," he said softly without turning back. "My beliefs have always been stronger than the truth. It just takes a while for me to find how they intersect." He shook his head and let go of the door, and it slid closed behind him.

By the time somebody followed him out, he had turned the first available corner and was gone.

He wandered for a while, head down as he thought. Old values and beliefs up against the current truths deserved some hard thinking. It wasn't something he'd wanted to do, but between Rung and Ultra Magnus, he was facing some difficult conflicts of thought. Rung wasn't letting him take the unhealthy route and try to bury his past. Instead, he was trying to help the time-displaced mech settle into the present without discarding everything he'd been before. Rung saw value in the past. Ultra Magnus, on the other wheel, had attempted to remake him in the image of Autobot Code. It wasn't that Ultra Magnus was deliberately dismissing Tailgate's past or railroading him into changing everything he'd been, but the ship's executive officer had also made it clear that the Duly Appointed Enforcer saw no room for disagreement with any of the 10,000 pages of the Autobot Code. The Code, like the Tyrest Accord, was Law. Arguing with the Law was not permitted.

Tailgate was more than a bit uneasy with some of the things in the Code, but he hadn't felt comfortable bringing it up with anyone who was actually an Autobot. And he really wanted to belong.

As Rung had pointed out, all the people he'd belonged with before were long dead. Tailgate was alone.

He usually wasn't one for moping, but he was in a black mood composed of sad thoughts and drunken logic when he finally meandered back to his habitation suite. He keyed the door open and walked in wearily, not expecting and not receiving any form of a greeting.

Cyclonus was still at the desk. Tailgate stared at the warrior's broad back for a minute, wanting to do…something. Say something. Anything. Nothing came to mind. He shook his head and went to lie down on the nearest berth. They never had talked about who got the berth closest to the window. Tailgate had decided to just not say anything and leave it for Cyclonus. The purple mech had gotten far too few kindnesses in return for his bravery, in the little mech's opinion.

In fact, that was something he should do. Yes. That was a good idea.

He struggled back upright and staggered only slightly as he rounded the berth to approach the desk. His tanks sloshed, unhappily processing highly-distilled engex. "Um, Cyclonus?"

"I did not think you would return tonight," Cyclonus' dry voice rasped back as the smaller mech stopped at his elbow. Not that he'd cared, of course. "Swerve's slagpit of a bar must have been quite full. I am doubly glad I did not visit it tonight." Not that he'd been tempted. He sniffed and paused in his sharpening. "The drinks must have been potent. You reek of them."

Did he smell? "Sorry," Tailgate apologized. "Um, can you look at me? I want to give you something."

"I want nothing from you."

"I know. But I owe you."

"You owe me nothing."

"I **do**," Tailgate insisted, raising a hand to not-quite touch the warrior's large arm. "We all do. All of Cybertron. So I'm gonna…gonna give you something to help pay down the debt we owe you."

For once, he managed to catch Cyclonus' interest, if only because the Decepticon couldn't follow his line of reasoning at all. The purple warrior turned his head toward him impatiently, optics flaring. "What are you blathering on about?"

Small white fingertips ventured up to touch his jaw, paralyzing him with the tentative flow and ebb of gratitude glimmering over his own EM field. The red pinpricks widened to glowing embers of surprise. "What - "

"Shhh," Tailgate crooned, stroking under his jaw with sensitive fingertips as he would an unfamiliar bomb, just getting the feel of what he was doing before starting in. His forefingers made small circles up the side of Cyclonus' mandible, eventually dipping into the empty space. They hooked over the edge to pull the larger mech's face down toward him. Not yanking or trying to force Cyclonus down; just persuading him with gentle tugs and pushes of appreciation through his hands. "Let me thank you for fighting for us. Fighting for me."

Cyclonus was leaning sideways almost without realizing it, face to face with the comparatively tiny Minibot. "I fought for Galvatron."

"Yes," Tailgate said simply, without any of the condemnation the rest of the ship would have displayed toward that one statement. He continued to pulse open, pure gratitude through his hands, letting it flow up the sides of Cyclonus' face and drift into the warrior's mouth to settle like the finest high grade over his tongue. "You also fought for Cybertron. I never got the chance to thank you in my time - our time?" His very circuitry throbbed a sudden pulse of sadness, and Cyclonus frowned, unable to understand it. "My time. But I have time now, so I'm going to thank you for giving us your services as one of our warriors. Please," he whispered, dimming his visor and stretching his neck upward to nuzzle his face mask against the pointed side of Cyclonus' mouth, "let me give you this in return."

After a moment, Cyclonus surrendered to the fingers playing in and out of the empty sides of his face, the nuzzle and slide of Tailgate's mask against his mouth. He surrendered, and for a while in that hab suite on that lost ship, the past became the present as if it'd never abandoned them.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


	5. Pt 5

**Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 5

**Warnings: **Seduction and awkward angst.

**Rating: ** R

**Continuity: **IDW & G1

**Characters: **Nautilator/D.J.D., Soundwave/Megatron

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **Kinkmeme and random prompts, this round

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Decepticon Justice Division - "roleplay Megatron"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

They first encountered him on a nowhere little station used for stocking ships.

Some fool of a Decepticon had been skimming fuel-grade energon off the vast station refuel tanks to sell to Neutrals. The D.J.D. had been more than happy to show him the error of his ways. That had resulted in the entire station getting a terrifying show. Wary Decepticons stared at them well after the last scream gurgled from the dying mech.

That's how it always was, however, so Helex and Tesarus weren't put off by the watching optics as they strolled across the open corridor between the docking arms. On either side of the huge room, ships connected to the station through the docking arms filled with crew and station personnel constantly coming and going. Tarn and Kaon were on the other end of the station casually reminding the station's command staff why loyalty to the Cause was the best option. Vos was minding the _Peaceful Tyranny_. That left the D.J.D.'s two titans to wander about as big visual signs of Decepticon justice. They hadn't bothered wiping away the spatters of vital fluids still covering them. Those who looked closely could see the unfortunate traitor's colors swirling through Helex's smelter.

It'd been a good day. It got better.

"Not a bad thing, but not the best. We've got to replace that circuit before we try using the console in pitched battle, that's all I'm saying." A small group of 'Cons walked out of the docking arm up ahead, obviously too newly arrived to be forewarned of the station's deadly celebrities. The two D.J.D. members got a couple double-takes, but most of the Decepticons in the group were too busy discussion what sounded like repairs. "I'm telling you, it'll give out when we least expect it."

Tesarus and Helex had frozen in their tracks, making their already gory appearance positively bizarre. Tesarus' mouth had dropped open slightly. A couple more Decepticons in the group noticed, but then the whole bunch turned to stride toward the nearest bar.

"Hail Megatron," Helex croaked at their backs.

"Hail Megatron," the crew said absently, barely pausing the conversation.

That…that voice. "Did you hear that?" Tesarus managed when he found his lost jaw. "Did you **hear** that?!"

Helex's head was bobbing and weaving as he tried to pinpoint one mech in the crowd. The two D.J.D. members were abruptly walking faster, but even the path that immediately cleared in front of them couldn't catch them up with the knot of mechs that'd…disappeared. Fraggit. "Which one was it? Who? We've got to call Kaon. Kaon can find who it is." They stopped in an intersection, circling back-to-back as they looked over the bustling station. "He sounded…"

"I know." Tesarus licked his lower lip. "I know."

But they didn't find him. They tried, but Snap Trap's crew had left the station again before Kaon could track down the rumors of a mech with the voice of Megatron. In the course of the tracking, he turned up several conversations pulled from security records. The mech - Nautilator, the files said - was the one on Comm. duty when Snap Trap's ship uncoupled from the docking arm. There was a slight error in the process, resulting in extended communication between Nautilator and the station's on-duty repairmech for that arm.

The D.J.D. members gathered around the _Peaceful Tyranny_'s own Comm. console, listening to the conversation.

"Pull back."

"No, no, don't. Be careful, that connection's a bit iffy."

"Gently, gently…"

"Slide it in. Yeah. Just like that."

"Can I bang this?"

"Bang away. Do it harder if you have to."

"Huh. Never had to do it this way before."

"Really? You need to get out more. I can't tell you how many mechs I've had to talk through this."

"Maybe that's why everything's so loose down here."

"It'd be tighter if you were half as good as advertised."

"Excu~use me for being in a bit of a hurry."

"Quit complaining and work harder, then."

"Frag, you're pushy. Hey, anyone every tell you - "

"Yes."

"Oh. Okay. It's just a little funny how you sound like - "

"Get back to work!"

"Gah!"

By about the middle of the conversation, Tarn's optics were unfocused and slightly glazed as they gazed upon absolutely nothing. Helex had his hands braced on the console and his knees turned in, chewing on his own lip. Tesarus' torso-tunnel was making sporadic, quiet churring sounds as his grinder tried to revv despite being locked down. Kaon was sitting in the comm. console's seat, hands in his own lap as he gave up any pretense of self-control and started stroking his own seams. Vos interrupted him by turning the seat and dropping to his knees between the other mech's legs to take over.

All five mechs jerked and made small, soft noises when Nautilator snapped at the whining repairmech. Because dear holy Primus, that was _Lord Megatron_ speaking, they could _swear it._

"I'll be in my quarters," Tarn said hoarsely, making a totally graceless exit. Kaon doubled over Vos' helm, hands clawing at the other mech's shoulders as he whimpered acknowledgement. One of Helex's hands had left the console, and Tesarus was quick to follow Vos' stellar example. Ever helpful to fellow members were the D.J.D.

They each saved their favorite samples of Nautilator's voice for, ahem, personal use. Lord Megatron's voice was available everywhere in speeches and such, but there was something terribly arousing about hearing their Lord's voice engaged in mundane tasks. It was just kind of...inexplicably hot.

They never mentioned what they were doing, but the _Peaceful Tyranny_ sort of meandered in the direction of Snap Trap's next port of call. Because of reasons. List-type reasons. Honest!

So the second time they encountered Nautilator was at the main fortress at Skriltr, but not right away. Snap Trap's ship remained in orbit for quite a while. The Decepticon Justice Division pretended to be inspecting the troops in the fortress for loyalty. It made the whole garrison nervous. The command staff tripped over themselves to prove themselves loyal to the Decepticon Cause. The grunts just kept running for cover.

It served as illustration of how normal Decepticons reacted to five extremely notorious torturers plonked in their midst. Nautilator was going to require something more delicate than simply walking over and demanding, "Berth. Now."

Or so they figured out when that most definitely didn't work.

"It seemed like a good idea," Tesarus said weakly when Nautilator shrieked in fear and bolted straight back to his ship.

Snap Trap the _Peaceful Tyranny_ with a carefully phrased demand for an updated posting of the List. Apparently, getting ordered to the berth had freaked the bolts off their target. The D.J.D. was skilled in ways to be murdering sadists. Not so much in ways to be seductive.

Nautilator evaded them for a week before Helex cornered him in the fortress. "Would you like to join us for some recreational activities?" got a stammered excuse and another view of the mech's heels as he fled.

Snap Trap queried them again on any unposted updates to the List. Were they sure? Because he'd been hearing some weird rumors. Something about a certain member of his crew and some oddly phrased invitations.

"No updates," Tarn growled, glaring at the wall as he spoke to the other captain. "Some of my mechs are - interested. In one of your crew."

There was a long pause on the other side of the connection. Then a sigh. "...it's the voice, isn't it. It's always the voice." Snap Trap's voice dropped to a resigned mutter. "They always want him for the voice."

The leader of the D.J.D. tried very hard not to sound as frustrated as he felt by that short insight into Nautilator's past berthmates. It sounded like they had _competition_. That would not do. "It is an intriguing quirk, you must admit," he said, attempting for an overtone of light amusement and instead pulling off intent to kill.

"Uh." Snap Trap obviously didn't quite know how to respond to that. "I suppose. If you, er, go for that." Tarn's engine roared, and the other Decepticon realized just how offensive that could be if a mech was already looking for a chance to beat someone into scrap metal. "Not that it's strange! At all! I'm not judging! Ah-ha-hahah, rusty nuts, communication difficulties, I'll call you right back."

The connection closed. Snap Trap did not call back. Two hours later, in fact, his ship lifted off from Skriltr and ducked back into orbit to hide among the larger warships. Tarn direly suspected that technical difficulties would continue to plague the ship if he tried to call.

Therefore, he didn't. He sent Vos, instead.

Well, it wasn't romantic, but the third time the D.J.D. encountered Nautilator was onboard the D.J.D.'s ship. It got Nautilator onto the _Peaceful Tyranny_, at least. Unconscious, so there was a high probability he didn't remember being ambushed and dragged off his own ship by a slender mech who likely skulked in traitors' nightmares. Reducing the trauma was a good idea, Tarn decided. Maybe. Unless they didn't get what they wanted.

Wait, no. Nautilator was a loyal Decepticon. No killing loyal Decepticons. That would run counter to the Cause.

Besides, loyalty was hot. A loyal Decepticon with Lord Megatron's voice? Helex would have trouble topping that, internal smelter or not. Vos had come back from stalking their target practically trembling with charge. They didn't ask him how long he'd had to keep himself concealed Nautilator was alone enough for an ambush. Kaon just took the gunformer aside to, um, ease the pain a bit before the poor mech exploded.

"Now what?" Helex asked, looking down at the quietly recharging mech laid out on Tarn's berth.

Why Tarn's berth? Because rank hath its privileges, that's why.

...although that was a good question. Rank had put Nautilator in Tarn's berth, but there was no guarantee the mech would stay there a moment past waking. Um. This could be incredibly awkward.

The small, unconscious Decepticon shifted on the berth, murmuring a quiet nothing before subsiding. Everyone's attention snapped to the berth.

Vos sucked in a deep vent and overloaded, shuddering violently in Kaon's hands. The blind mech's brow furrowed. He'd barely touched his fellow Justice member. The power of Lord Megatron's voice was immense during a speech. Softly spoken words sweetly said in the berth were going to reduce them to wobbly-kneed weaklings.

Primus, they needed this mech. Right now.

"...ah. Tarn, perhaps you could...do that voice thing? Try, at least?" the blind mech asked cautiously.

His leader looked to him, then away. Tarn's voice could coax a spark into giving up. He could tear a spark to pieces. Using it for anything else was somewhat - tricky. Difficult. The tonal differences between pleasure and pain were miniscule. Having even a speck of dust move into his vocalizer when attempting it had sent his test subjects from wanton moaning to screaming agony.

Helex and Vos still changed the subject hurriedly whenever trying _that_ experiment came up again. None of them were shy (or vanilla, for that matter) in the berth, but there was shy and then there was stupid. They were sadists, not masochists.

Bad personal experiences or not, they were all looking to Tarn hopefully now.

"I suppose," he agreed reluctantly.

What he would never admit to was how the idea of hearing Nautilator scream in Lord Megatron's voice was already making him shiver apprehensively inside. If he lost control, that would be precisely what would happen. If it _did_ work, Tarn would have to retain perfect control through _Lord Megatron_ groaning in utmost, spark-deep pleasure.

Oh, wow.

Oh, no.

This could only end badly.

Especially since Nautilator had woken up at some point to stare blankly up at the conversation happening over his head. Oops.

"Hi," Tesarus said, tentatively waving one hand. A machine arm's hand. He caught himself a second later and snatched all four of his hands to hide behind his back. "Recharge well?"

Nautilator continued to stare. Here we see the wild D.J.D. in their natural habitat, standing awkwardly around someone's personal quarters ogling their prey. Who was on someone's berth. Why was he on the berth? Only the D.J.D. knew. Except that they'd been talking about doing something with a voice, which Nautilator immediately connected to his own vocal talent, a.k.a. curse.

"You're not on the List," Tarn said quickly, just a bit hunted.

"...thanks. I think." One of Nautilator's optics twitched. Yeah, that was better. Or worse. Because it still didn't explain _why he was on a berth surrounded by the D.J.D._

This was either the start of a very bad porno, or a very good horror vid.

"May I overload you?" Kaon blurted. Small crackles of electricity zapped up his coils, betraying just how eager he was to follow through on that. The other Decepticons slowly turned to gape at him. Even blind, he could feel that. "What?" He folded his arms and smirked. "You're just jealous you didn't ask first."

There were a few grumbles. They sounded like variations on, "Yeah, kinda."

Nautilator blinked. Despite himself, he relaxed a little. Okay. The bad porno it was. Had he taken a hit to the head? Fueled with some bad energon? Did the D.J.D. do practical jokes? "Ha. Haha, right."

A moment later, the fact that there was enough charge in the room to light up air molecules registered with him. The other knife dropped in the small Decepticon's head. "...right."

There was a possibility that this situation could have been handled worse, but it was very small. "May I?" Kaon asked again, fingers flexing.

A smart mech didn't refuse the D.J.D. what they wanted. "Am I going to die?" Nautilator asked somewhat plaintively. "I don't know what I did, but - "

"You didn't do anything!" Kaon rushed to reassure him, edging closer. It'd have been subtle if his shoulders weren't loudly _snap-crackle-pop_ping. "We, ah. We like your voice."

"You won't be harmed," Helex promised gravely. He was edging closer, too, all four hands held in front of himself as if to hide the bubbling metal in his midriff. For once, he was rather hoping his smelter would be overlooked. "We would, to be honest, just like to hear you talk."

Nautilator stared. He transferred his incredulous look from one scary mech to another, almost gaping, but nothing he saw translated as a threat. Vos looked like he'd just overloaded. Tarn was avoiding his optics by studiously reading something he'd picked up off a table. Helex looked like he wanted to pounce the small Decepticon. Kaon was actually shivering with excess, very visible charge. Tesarus was rocking back and forth on his heels, fidgeting and smiling hopefully.

"I believe you'll rather enjoy cooperating," Tarn said slowly. He paused when Vos and Helex both gave him odd looks and Nautilator sat up hurriedly. "...erm. That was not meant as a threat. Despite what it may have sounded like."

Right. Talking to non-List Decepticons was more difficult than it seemed. All that finicky social interaction.

What was a mech to do? "I have a shift in two joors," Nautilator said, but it sounded like the feeble protest it was. At some point, curiosity overwhelmed fear in a situation like this.

"You'll be returned in time," Tarn assured him after an assessing look at the rest of the crew. "I will - explain your absence to your captain."

Because that wasn't going to be a strange conversation at all. No, really. Snap Trap was going to get threatened to hold his fragging vocalizer on pain of lots of pain. Lots and lots of pain. For Tarn, that was a far more normal conversation to have than all this nice, polite, small talk.

Nautilator looked around at the five watching faces and five pairs of eagerly waiting hands. "Um. Alright. I guess you can, um, overload me. What do you want me to - ? Eep!"

The squeak of alarm came because Kaon had almost teleported himself onto the berth with him. "You don't have to do anything," the blind mech said, thin voice gone breathless as he crawled behind the confused 'Con. "Can you repeat that?"

That got a quizzical look that slid into understanding as comprehension bloomed. Right, the Decepticon Justice Division, known the whole faction over as fanatic believers in the Cause. That probably had a lot of overlap for hero worship toward the leader of the Cause. Nautilator could sort of see how they might like his voice in, uh, _that_ way.

Maaaaybe he could play around with this a bit. If he had the guts for it. Exactly how big a diameter were his bearings?

He took a deep invent and let his vocalizer purr down into that rich, rasping pitch he actively tried to avoid most of the time. "You may overload me."

The entire group shuddered in unison.

Kaon's shoulder coils flashed brilliant white, and he drew back in embarrassment. "S-sorry. I didn't - I usually don't - I'll keep going, don't worry. I can last longer, I swear!"

Nautilator turned his head to blink at the mech as the verbal stumbling continued. Holy slag...had he just _overloaded_ because of..?

Yes. Yes, he had.

Oh.

Talk about a heady sense of power.

"Continue," Nautilator ordered, suddenly riding a dizzy power-high. "Overload me, now!"

Kaon sucked in a shocked in-vent and scrambled to sit behind him, legs spread to cradle him between them. "Yes, Lord!" He caught himself a second after it slipped out, looking shocked for another reason altogether. The other four D.J.D. members looked like they'd been sucker-punched. "Wuh - I-I - you're **not** - "

"Nope," the mech in his hands said, optics nervous but still speaking in that familiar, worshiped voice. "But I don't mind. Not the first time I've played that role in the berth. If that's okay?" His voice rose half an octave as he thought about what he'd just said and realized it could really be taken wrong by this particular group. "Whoa, hey, not that I'd impersonate Lord Megatron! I didn't mean it like that!"

"We didn't assume so," Helex interrupted any further breakage of the fantasy they'd just tripped head-first into. Optics dimming, the huge walking smelter knelt in front of the berth and held out his arms. "May I, Lord Megatron?"

...frag. Nautilator had done quite a few roleplays in the berth with mechs who enjoyed powerplay before. He'd never been addressed with _that_ tone of voice before. The massive Decepticon sounded like every dream he had balanced on the answer to his question. And from the way the other three mechs had clustered up behind him, avidly watching, Nautilator was fulfilling a fetish well beyond mere powerplay.

"My name is Kaon," the mech behind him whispered, thin voice trembling.

"Helex."

"Tarn."

"Tesarus!"

"Vos."

Nautilator blinked. He swallowed. Then he dropped his vocalizer back down and repeated their names. "Kaon. Helex. Tarn. Tesarus. Vos. My loyal Decepticons. Serve me with every cable in your bodies, every last drop of innermost energon, and I will reward you for your service to the Decepticon Empire - and to me."

It was the opening lines of the Decepticon oath broadcast when the brand was taken. It sent the D.J.D. to their collective knees, optics off and completely floored. Old, familiar words spoken directly to them. To them, by name. Personalized acknowledgement of their commitment to duty.

"My Lord," someone all but prayed.

"Kaon," Nautilator growled, trying really hard not to break out in giddy laughter, "you have your orders. Helex, proceed."

There were hands all over him abruptly. Only two, but they were everywhere, spreading electric charge over his plating and dipping into every seam to tease and fire him up. A smaller pair of hands had him by the ankle joints, turning him on the berth until his feet came to rest against glass just warm enough to feel...that felt rather good, in fact. Nautilator had his feet against a living smelter's front panel, and he just thought it felt good? Okay. This was his life.

Helex put all four hands to good use, starting a massage that had Nautilator groaning even before Kaon did. Large hands delved into pelvic joints, stretching stiff cables that rarely got attention. Meanwhile, smaller hands started tweaking knee cables. Kaon had his forehelm resting on Nautilator's shoulder, just absorbing the small sounds of a mech relaxing from the everyday pangs of stiffness at the same time as arousal tensed entirely different parts of the body.

With their optics off, it sounded exactly like Lord Megatron under their hands. And ohhhh. They could do this all day.

"Tesarus." That respected, _desired_ voice had a hint of static in it, now. Kaon pressed against Nautilator's back and mouthed desperately at the side of his neck, trying to burrow closer to that sound. "Take Vos. I wish to see two of my most loyal in pleasure. Show me what you are capable of, were I to take you myself."

"Ohfragohfragoh - **yes**, Lord!" Vos didn't have a chance to do more than bleat something garbled and shrill before Tesarus tackled him to the floor right then and there. The living grinder kissed down the side of the much smaller Decepticon, ignoring how it caused delightful little wriggles. Vos twisted under him, trying to display flexibility and his best features for viewing pleasure. "My Lord, how shall I..?"

Anything to keep that beloved voice talking.

"You may use your hands, but not your mouth," Lord Megatron ordered, and if the entwined pair on the floor only looked from their peripheral vision, all they could see were red optics watching them from over Helex's bowed helm. The backlighting from Kaon's shoulder coils helped the illusion by hiding everything in dark shadow. "Vos. Struggle. Show me you are physically formidable. Show me that your slight frame is not a liability. Top Tesarus." A rich, rolling chuckle stroked down their backstruts like a master rewarding his pets. "Tesarus. Do not make it easy for him, or I will be disappointed in you."

Well, it wasn't like Tarn needed that table anyway. Or chair. And they'd fix the wall later. There wasn't much they could do about accidentally punching Helex in the back a few times, but they'd apologize later. It wasn't like the walking smelter seemed to notice. He had his head practically in Nautilator's lap as he listened to the appreciative sighs and grunts while all four hands sought out over-taut cables and hot spots alike.

That left the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division. That left Tarn. Tarn, who was holding onto dignity and self-control with a faltering grip as his crew totally lost themselves to fantasy around him.

Nautilator reached out, immersed into his role and awash in pleasure as Kaon relentlessly worked him toward an overload. Fingers glided down the purple mask that marked just how devoted this mech was to Megatron - to _his_ - Cause. "Tarn."

The kneeling mech shut off his optics and tried to regulate his already erratic ventilation system. It kept on trying to shut off, afraid to cover up even the smallest nuance of that voice. He didn't want to miss _anything_ spoken here in his very own quarters. "My...Lord," he managed, sounding choked.

"My most faithful servant," Lord Megatron stated. "Your reward can be best given by your own hands. Here, beside me." A finger hooked around the edge of the mask and tugged, indicating that his lord and master wished him to join Kaon on the berth. "Show me how you are best pleased, and I will witness your pleasure. I will remember it, and in the cold nights when our fight seems too endless to endure, I will hold the heat of your devotion to me."

Tarn almost didn't make it onto the berth before he overloaded.

"Again," rumbled throughout the room, however, and the D.J.D. were helpless but to obey.

So one thing led to another, as it usually did, and it turned out that Nautilator was late for his shift. Mostly because after six overloads, reading one of Megatron's books aloud for a spellbound audience, and getting a full-body massage while Kaon held a microphone in his face to catch every soft noise he made - fraggit, he was tired. He zonked out in Tarn's berth and woke up to a rapt group of fanbots listening to him _breathe_.

Creepy? Yes. But that was okay, because the fourth time the Decepticon Justice Division encountered the 'Con who spoke with Megatron's voice, they brought him gifts to make up for it. And this time they didn't even have to kidnap him to lure him back for a repeat performance.

* * *

** [* * * * *]**

_"Soundwave to Smugwave to Sexywave"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

He hadn't known there was anyone there until red shone out of the dark. Megatron caught it and whirled to - ah. Point his cannon at the floor once more. "Soundwave," he greeted his most loyal officer. "The mission?"

The blocky blue form appeared out of the shadows as if they were reluctant to let him go. The whole room seemed to exude the Cassette carrier's dark glee. "Mission: successful."

Not just successful, but perfectly executed. No one else could have pulled it off but Soundwave, and now no one would ever know it _had_ been pulled off. No one outside this room, that was. In this room, Soundwave could gloat. He was proud of his success, and here, with this mech, he could let his smug pride in his abilities show. Metal throughout the room vibrated just slightly with the deep tone he said the two simple, secret-laden words with. Soundwave rarely dropped his monotone, and even now his voice carried the metallic tinge of a vocalizer more in tune with computer circuitry than mechs' audios.

Megatron's voice surpassed it with a silky purr. "Good."

The officer straightened, standing tall to bask in that acknowledgement of a job well done. There was a short series of clicks made loud only because of the silence. Soundwave's self-satisfied confidence hitched and suddenly became something...more. So there was to be reward.

No longer as restrained by propriety, he eased into a slow walk forward with his visor glimmering unspoken gratitude.

His lord set aside the fusion cannon. "Very good."

Megatron's optics brightened slightly, surprised, when Soundwave swept into a shallow bow. "Megatron: permission?"

Loyalty earned its own rewards. Trust was one of the more highly valued, in the carrier's opinion. His lord and master looked at him for only a moment before slowly nodding. Not asking about permission for _what?_. Merely nodding, because this was Soundwave who asked.

And it was Soundwave who would repay the honor of that highly-priced trust, four-fold. One hip swayed in a manner no one else ever saw, an unexpectedly flexible movement as secret as the mission neither Decepticon in this room would ever speak of again. He reached out and ran two of his fingers around the rim of the cannon. For all its power, its massive intimidation factor rested solely upon whose arm it rode.

Later, as he rode it in turn, Soundwave rather hoped the point was clearly made.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


	6. Pt 6

**Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 6

**Warning: **Torture, gore, bad poetry, and interfacing robots.

**Rating: ** R

**Continuity: **IDW

**Characters: **Drift, Rodimus, Tarn, Ultra Magnus, Krok, Fulcrum, Misfire, Spinister, Crankcase, Grimlock, Fortress Maximus, Whirl, Siren, Cosmos, Powerglide, Blaster, Overlord, Pharma

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **Prompts off Tumblr, the Dreamwidth board, and random.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

Rodimus and Drift - "sitting around and drunkenly bitching about things_" / _Drift - "making the DJD hurt"

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"Oh, Primus." Drift started to raise his drink, realized it was empty, and set it down. There was no choice left but to endure the pain. He was no longer able to rise and ease the agony via further intoxication. "He's got another one? How many did they let him **do**?"

Rodimus felt his pain. He shared it. That didn't meant he was going to share any of his drinks, no matter the hopeful look Drift gave him. "Heavy-duty miner frame in a poetry club? Not even the bouncer probably dared touch him." For once, Rodimus had thought ahead. He'd brought a small army of glasses to the table. Most of them were drained already. It helped dull the pain of listening to this. He stared blearily at the projected picture, one finger wagging as if trying to place a tune as the speaker swung into an eerily familiar cadence. "Ha! Got it. Is that _'Take My Spark To Praxus'_?"

He waved his hand over his drinks, batting away Drift's hands. The young captain horded the remaining full glasses of engex to his chest. He could not afford to sacrifice any to the gods of sympathy. Sorry, Drift, but some things a captain was allowed to pull rank on.

Drift understood how it was. Rodimus was a soft Autobot. More drinking was probably necessary for the weak to endure. Not Drift, nope. Drift was hardened, streetwise, and too tough to crack under bad poetry ripped off from an already cheesy song's lyrics. "What? No way." He was also perfectly able to scoot his chair toward the bar because, by all that was holy, it really was _'Take My Spark To Praxus'_. "Did he even try? Hold on, hold on…" He paused in his chair-scooting and straightened as if to give his own performance. He had to clear his throat of the mingled laughter and screaming from the previous attempt at poetry they'd endured. "'_Take my spark to Praxus, my love, and drive the roads above~'_ oh come **on**. **I** can do better than that!"

Sadly for the wanna-be poet who was immortalized in footage Rewind had dug up from where 'someone' had tried to bury it (they had _suspicions_ about who'd buried it, oh yes they did), Drift likely _could_ do a better job at poetry. Frag, he could scoop better rhyme composed by stim-addled drones out of the gutter. He'd still give a better performance than this slag, and yet he couldn't currently grab a cube off the bar without first poking it cautiously to distinguish the real cube from the three his overcharged optical sensors insisted were piled on the counter.

"He didn't even change the rhyme." This was painful, just painful. Rodimus slammed back another full glass of engex. The projection was still in front of him when he came up for air and to wipe his mouth. He cringed a bit when passion - or inexperience - made the speaker's voice crack at _just_ the wrong time. "This's…wow. How many of these you got, Rewind?" the captain asked muzzily, putting the hand holding the empty glass under his chin.

The tiny Autobot beaming the video on the wall for them hummed thoughtfully. Apparently he was immune to their pain. "According to these files, he came back two more nights before the show recordings go back to the regular local poets."

"Nooooo," the other two Autobots moaned in chorus.

Rodimus let his chin slip off his hand, and his forehelm slammed into the table. This did not seem to be a problem for him, as he started tapping it in time with Megatron's badly-rhymed, poorly-written drivel being clumsily (if passionately) performed on the wall in front of him. The physical pain seemed to help distract him. Young Megatron's public speaking had been very sad in the beginning. Everyone had to start out somewhere, but _ouch_. Rewind seemed to be finding it all fascinating, but Drift and Rodimus had reached the point where laughing mockery became horrified disbelief and then slid downward into prayers for a quick death.

Megatron's performance was so painful to watch that Drift paused halfway from the bar and scooted back. He made himself at home there, giving up on the return trip to the table. There was no point in pretending this was going to get any better. He contemplated whether it'd be rude to drink straight from the spigot.

He looked over at this private viewing's guest of honor and was just drunk enough to feel a sliver of sympathy. "Y'want some?" The spigot was waved vaguely in Tarn's direction. Wait, no. Awkward moment of logistics, here. Drift thought hard and fished a solution out of the muddled depths of his sloshed mind. "Can't take the vocalizer-lock off, but, uh…I can pour it down an auxiliary intake?"

Even behind the mask, Tarn's optics had the half-squinted look of someone who'd been trying to flinch only when no one was looking at him. There was subtle shifting as the Decepticon tried to unobtrusively straighten back up and look like he hadn't been wincing every other word. Drift could sort of understand trying to stand - uh, sit, in this case - tall and proud even under this assault of drivel. The leader of the D.J.D. was supposed to be a fanatic loyalist, supportive of all Megatron's great works. This didn't really qualify as a great work. It was sort of a bellyflop into epic failure. _'Megatron: The Early Years'_ was probably considered cruel and unusual punishment by galactic standards.

Drift turned his head toward the video and contemplated it with the serene despair of a torture victim. He could respect the amount of strength it took to remain proudly aloof through this record of verbal and linguistic travesty. "Being this overcharged kinda helps." Drift turned his head just quickly enough to catch Tarn looking. Yeah, those red optics were definitely eyeing the spigot with longing. "Takes the edge off."

"Drift. Driiiiiift." Rodimus still head on the table, but he was rolling it back and forth as Rewind changed to the next video. "Drift, if he compares one more social injustice to 'the black depths of my darkest night, alone and cold,' I'm going to purge. I really am."

"Urgh. Yes." Just the reminder of that overused phrase had Drift shuddering in horror. Screw manners. Tarn could suffer. It was spigot time in DriftLand.

"Ah." Rewind paused the video and seemed somewhat apologetic when both drunk (but regretfully still conscious) Autobot officers stared at him. "Shall I get you a bucket, then?"

"I can't do it," Rodimus said faintly. "I just can't." He contemplated his table full of empty glasses. When had he downed the last of them? "Drift. I need liquid reinforcement."

"Why bother?" Having guzzled some courage of his own, Drift sat back in his chair and braced himself for the horror to come. There was apparently a reason no one had ever published any of Megatron's early, _early_ poetry. "S'only gonna come back up."

"True. But!" The captain raised a finger to emphasize his point. It wobbled but pointed vaguely upward. "Throwing up might drown out some of the worst parts."

"Oooo, point." Drift began looking for something to stack full glasses on as the next video started.

Tarn just silently suffered.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_"everything involving Fulcrum"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

There are theories of multiple universes.

An infinite number of possibilities exist for every action. Everything can change, depending on how a shot lands, when a flyer turns, or where a cube got set down. An infinite amount of dimensions spin off from every turning, the theory goes. That means that there are an infinite number of every mech alive, and an infinite amount of universes branching from his every action and decision he may or may not make in the course of his life. An even greater amount of dimensions branch out from every permutation of his death, touching off chains of new universes from the lives he failed to touch because of that death, or touched because of it.

Imagine this ever-expanding vista of dimensions. Impressive, isn't it? Impossible to explore in its vastness, like trying to count and map every star in the current universe.

The theory is incomplete, however. It's not that it is wrong, but merely mistaken on a single detail. The theory is too broad in scope. It assumes that everything is equal, creating possibilities with no favor for whatever caused the branching off. There is the error.

The multiverses do not branch out in a vast, directionless field on many planes with no order to them. No, they center around one mech. Everything focuses upon that center. Everything builds up to him. Everything turns around him. Everything is, in some peripheral way, about him.

He seems, in each universe, to be one small piece of the larger dimension. It is impossible to see his value in the middle scale; there is only the micro-view, and the very largest macro. Close up, his value seems tiny, yet causes the greatest changes around him. Taken on the wider view, across all the multiverses, he becomes the crux.

He is the Fulcrum.

In one dimension, he is a cowardly technician who fails to die. In another, he leads four murderous Decepticons on a crusade against the unfaithful. In yet another, he waves a powerful hand and exterminates a rival faction leader. Elsewhere, he meets two construction crewmates and an electrician in a bar to listen to a singer with a rich, crooning voice. They buy the scientist at the next table a song, and this mech leers when the singer picks a ribald song.

He has died many times. He has lived just as many.

And around him, the universes multiply.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Other universes: "_Scavengers (or Lost Light) - a tribble problem_"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

It started with six mechs. Five relatively harmless Decepticons, one brain-dead Autobot, and the biggest set of pleading optics Rodimus had ever run up against. Misfire came on-screen when the W.A.P. hailed the _Lost Light_, and that was the end of it. Ultra Magnus could say what he wanted about the potential criminals running loose on the ship, but that described most mechs in his optics, so nobody took that very seriously. Those big red optics kind of trumped any argument the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord could come up with, anyway, and what the optics didn't demolish, Fulcrum argued into the ground.

Ultra Magnus held a strange sort of respect for Fulcrum. Fulcrum huffed and grumbled and seemed to be thinking about becoming a lawyer.

The fact that the small band of Decepticons handed over Grimlock with no complaint helped their case. The fact that Spinister sternly lectured Ratchet on the Dynobot's care didn't endear him to the medic, but it did demonstrate that the Scavengers cared more about Grimlock than they showed. In fact, the care they displayed for each other was remarkable for Decepticons. They tried not to show that fact.

The Autobots in Swerve's bar mused that they probably weren't aware that they _were_ showing it. They probably thought they were being tough and macho.

Even Cyclonus barked a laugh when that was suggested, which made Whirl swear mightily because that meant had to pay up on his bet with Skids that the purple mech had no sense of humor. Tailgate squeezed his hands under his chin and called the five Decepticons 'cute,' but he found a lot of inappropriate things attractive. Nobody cared what he thought on the subject. The rest of the Autobots scoffed. There was no way they'd ever apply the word 'cute' to a bunch of Decepticons. Skids muttered dire threats of dismemberment into his drink whenever Misfire got within half a ship of him. Chromedome pointedly put himself between the 'Cons and Rewind. The other Autobots weren't any more polite about their anger and resentment.

Murderers! Thieves! All of them!

Besides, Crankcase said stuff like _"Bah!"_ out loud. What kind of mech did that? That slag just wasn't right.

In the course of three weeks, that opinion kind of shifted. Not all at once, and not even on purpose. The ragtap group of Decepticons was prone to petty theft and wouldn't hesitate to off an Autobot or six if there were some way they could get away with it. Everyone knew that. It was just that they were everywhere, got into everything, and were sort of really lame when it came to being threatening when up against, well, anyone who wasn't half-dead. On the surface, the crew of the _Lost Light_ still hated the Scavengers' collective guts because the misfits were still Decepticons. More and more, however, the Autobots were starting to watch the hopeless failures in amusement.

Autobots and Decepticons weren't really enemies anymore, after all. It was okay to not be completely hostile toward them, right? Plus, movie night got kind of old after a while, but Misfire's baffled speculations (surely not all of the bizarre things he referred to actually happened?) over what he'd done to earn Skids' hatred never got boring.

Yeah, the Autobots were doing a nice job justifying themselves. The word 'cute' got bandied around the bar more and more often. The fact that they were discussing the Scavengers with such terminology was merely incidental.

Ratchet caught the Decepticons not-quite-casually clustering outside the medibay doors while Crankcase was being examined. He kicked them off down the hall. They lurked around the corner until Crankcase insisted on bringing Spinister in when Ratchet brought up surgery, and then they all came crowding in. When the Ark's chief medic refused to include Spinister in the operation, Krok broke out rules and regulations about assuming responsibilities for his mechs' health. Then Crankcase refused to even consider treatment unless there was Decepticon medic involved, and since Spinister was the only Decepticon medic onboard, that was that.

It took three shots of Swerve's knock-'em-out engex for Ratchet to stop fuming, later. "Krok looked like he was going to fight me over it." The medic ran a hand down his face and reached for another shot. "…that should not be cute."

But it was. It was even cuter when the whole group camped out in the corridor when Crankcase went into surgery. Misfire brought snacks. Fulcrum coaxed Grimlock into transforming and lying down, whereupon he draped a tarp over the Dynobot and turned him into a strange kind of tent-fort. It looked like it wasn't the first time they'd done it, because Misfire immediately scuttled inside Fort Dynobot, and Krok perched on top to glower like an irate sentry at anyone who dared pass by. The intimidation factor was lost in the sound of Grimlock's engine-purr.

"They said they were playing cards," Ambulon griped, head in his hands. "I just…I let them in to go see him." A ripple of muffled snickering went around the bar. He bristled defensively. "There was a Dynobot staring at me! Don't judge me until you've had something with that many teeth stare you down."

Misfire glomped Tailgate when the little Bomb Disposal expert helped Ratchet figure out how to disarm the trigger in Fulcrum's tanks. Okay, to be honest, it was mostly Ratchet, but Ratchet wasn't small and nonthreatening. He'd have probably put the Decepticon through a wall if Misfire tried hugging him, so the jet just went for Tailgate. Fulcrum dazedly did likewise. Spinister picked them all up and spun them around. Krok radiated approval and relief, for all that he limited himself to patting the Minibot on the shoulder once Spinister finally let them go. Crankcase snorted but gave him a nod of thanks.

"I didn't say anything!" Tailgate protested when he walked into the bar to face a wall of expectant looks.

Whirl didn't have to say anything. He wore streaks of Spinister's paint and rotor-slashes proudly. First Aid was the one who gushed when he skipped into the bar later that shift.

"Krok was **sputtering**, it was **adorable**," the ex-nurse giggled while everyone pretended not to be eavesdropping. "He wanted to go straight to Ultra Magnus to file a complaint, but Spinister just wanted to get the bulletholes patched in time for 'Round Two.' You should have **seen** their faces when the rest of them figured out what he meant by **that**."

The rest of the Autobots didn't have to. They could clearly see the swagger in Whirl's step when he left soon after, and that was far more than any of them wanted to ever see. Crankcase's beeline to the bar got a cleared path instead of belligerence, for once, and Skids actually slid a glass of engex down the bar when Misfire melodramatically collapsed over it. The drink was poisoned, of course, but the sentiment was appreciated. Fulcrum had to talk the jet out of drinking it anyway, just to clear the mental pictures away.

Unfortunately for their peace of mind, Krok had a panic attack when nobody could find either of the rotary mechs three hours later. There was a search. Everyone approached closed doors with the expectation of opening it to psychological damage and possibly weapons' fire on the other side.

By hour five, Krok lost it completely and stormed onto the ship's bridge. He accused Ultra Magnus of disposing of his surgeon. Fulcrum, Misfire, and Crankcase desperately kept a hold on their officer, apologizing in snatches between wrestling him down. Watching the dignified strategist pitching a fit at the much, much larger executive officer made for grand entertainment. Ultra Magnus kept an entirely blank face the whole time. Rodimus laughed himself silly.

The rest of the bridge shift joined him when Whirl poked his head into sight on the bridge's wide viewing window. Spinister sheepishly waved at everyone from behind the Autobot rotary mech. They both looked scratched up and battered, but tremendously satisfied with themselves.

Krok promptly stomped over and began yelling at them both. Despite the fact that they couldn't hear him. Whirl appeared to be making commentary right back at him, which only made Krok froth all the more. The other three Scavengers ran off and found Grimlock to restrain their overly possessive officer before he tried going outside of the ship to rip a strip off Whirl.

That backfired when Krok recruited Grimlock to wait with him at the airlock for Spinister and Whirl to return. Ultra Magnus put himself between the Decepticon officer and his own troublemaker. Krok ignored the Autobot rotary mech save for one furious glare after an icy stare-down with the _Lost Light_'s Second-in-Command. Whirl complained bitterly as he was taken away from the free entertainment in order to be written up for violating nine different fraternization rules. The rest of the Autobots who'd arrived in time for the show stuck around.

All four Scavengers whined pathetically when their officer demanded curfews and chaperones, or at least asking permission beforehand. Permission for _what_ wasn't stated. That was fine. The watching crowd of Autobots was already laughing so hard they needed to lean on each other.

The 'c'-word got said a lot in the bar that night.

Then Krok decided that if he couldn't fight it, he'd just up and deal with the problem the old-fashioned way. It took another week for Whirl to figure out that he'd been adopted into the unit. Two, for the Autobots to figure out Tailgate had been absorbed, too.

Cyclonus didn't like how Krok began eyeing him. Ambulon became suspicious when Spinister hung out in the medibay more often. Fulcrum gave that amiable smile, and the next thing mechs knew, there were a _'If found, please call Krok'_ comm. frequency tags attached to various bits of anatomy. Misfire began actively trolling for other flyers, and argh, those _optics_.

It started with six Scavengers: five Decepticons, and one brain-dead Autobot. It soon spread, as much as nobody wanted to admit it.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_ Other universes: _Fulcrum -"He REALLY wants to read that book._"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

The Scavengers didn't start out wandering freely around the _Lost Light_. No, Ultra Magnus would have never allowed that. Misfire had gotten Rodimus on their side with the wide optics and never-ending chatter, but that just meant the Autobots rescued the Decepticons from their derelict hunk of junk. The W.A.P. had been floating powerless through space for enough time that rescue by anybody was welcome.

Ultra Magnus and a team met the 'Cons at the airlock to escort them straight to the brig. The leader of the small Decepticon group stepped on board and looked up at the much taller, much _bulkier_ mech waiting for him, and Krok swallowed visibly. Then he braced himself, folded his arms, and put up his chin defiantly. There was a slight bit of respect awarded him by the Autobots for managing that much.

"I am Krok, acting captain of the _Weak Anthropic Principle_."

"That's a really weird name," someone commented from the back.

Krok ignored whomever it'd been. "I take full responsibility for my mechs in this," one optic twitched in distaste for having to submit to Autobots, "situation. All issues should be addressed to me as their commander. Got it?"

The aura of steely control the scarred mech was trying to project was somewhat sabotaged by the scowling Decepticon with a head injury standing by his shoulder, and the slender orange-and-tan mech who appeared to be trying to hide behind him. Fulcrum nervously peered around Krok's arm and ventured a smile that crumbled around the edges. As the armed, impatiently waiting Autobots recognized the K-Con's frametype, Krok faced off with the ship's executive officer like he'd take the Autobot on if Ultra Magnus tried pulling something on his unit.

That's approximately when Grimlock barreled through the tense group, however. That kind of pre-empted any words being traded about a K-Class mech being allowed onboard.

The shocked assembly stared after the rampaging reptilian creature that'd just plowed into them and continued stomping down the corridor. "Grimlock?" Ultra Magnus ventured, sounding a teensy bit off-balance for once in his life. "That was Grimlock, was it not? What is he doing here?" Meaning, what was a notorious Autobot beserker doing aboard a Decepticon ship?

Krok put a hand to his still-tender facial mask. "Ah. Erm. Yes. About that. I didn't, ah, precisely know how to bring up that we had a passenger, considering his…distorted state of mind - "

Spinister tried to follow the Dynobot, at that point, and accidently knocked the three Decepticons already in the airlock sprawling out into the confused Autobot posse. Fulcrum jumped into Ultra Magnus' arms, propelled by sheer about-to-get-trampled panic and a surgeon directly to the back struts. Krok took out Skids by faceplanting into his knees, and Crankcase might have intentionally tripped up Whirl. One never knew, with Crankcase. Misfire bounded out of the airlock and cleared the whole flailing mess in one neat flip in and out of his altmode, landing on his feet on the other side and taking off after Grimlock.

He was still pleading for him to stop at the top of his voice. The Autobots would have shot the jet, but there was just something incredibly not-threatening about a Decepticon chasing a Dynobot through the ship yelling, "Tummy rubs, Grimmy! Grimlock! Grimmy, c'mon!"

Ultra Magnus stood there, face a mask. His hands were rigid, as if unable to believe what they were holding. His errant Deceptidamsel in distress abruptly realized just who he'd been clinging to. The K-Con looked up at him, face horrified, and let go of him. Fulcrum promptly fell splat onto the floor with a sound much like a latex balloon having sex with a glitchmouse: sort of a _squeak-pop_ without even a pretense of pride about it.

Krok scrambled upright and looked after his hyperactive subordinate. Misfire skidded around a corner still yelling his helm off. His commander groaned as he hung his head. "Fulcrum! Spinister! Dynobot duty, **now**!"

"Dynobot duty..?" that same somebody repeated in from the crowd, sounding a little dumbfounded this time.

"I thought I was on Dynobot duty already," Spinister asked, hesitating, but Fulcrum zipped past him as the K-Con pelted after Grimlock. "Wait! Wait for me! I've got his treats!" The rotary mech took off down the corridor, too, waving a box of energon goodies above his head as he ran.

The Autobots collectively looked at each other, looked at Crankcase giving them a _'Yeah, what of it?'_ glare, and moseyed on after the loud chase crashing its way through the _Lost Light_. Someone distantly shrieked what sounded like, "Sit! Sit - don't eat that! Don't eat **him**!"

"Explain," Ultra Magnus demanded curtly once the last Autobot turned the corner.

Krok had a despairing look to his optics. "I would if I could. Does your captain's insurance accept 'accidental survival' as viable cause of damage?"

"…we don't have insurance."

That got a sigh. The Decepticon hadn't expected differently, really. "A mech could hope."

It took Misfire to chase him, Spinister to lay out a bait-trail of treats into a corner, and Fulcrum sitting in the corner ready with tummy rubs and jaw skritches in order to subdue Grimlock. The three 'Cons swarmed the Dynobot, petting and cooing and prodding until the huge, brain-damaged mech finally calmed down enough to transform back to rootmode. By then, there was an audience and no hope for dignity. Krok had wandered after his ragtag crew, and he stood there watching them push Grimlock along toward the medibay. The officer looked resigned to his fate. He trailed after them.

Ultra Magnus, at a loss for what rule covered this situation, settled for acting as Crankcase's armed escort. Crankcase bitched the whole way.

When Grimlock finally made it to the medibay, Fulcrum and Misfire tackled introducing him to First Aid.

"He…faid?"

"First Aid."

"He afraid."

"No, he's Fir - oh, well, no, you're right. That's Fulcrum, and yeah, he's afraid 90% of the time. Who taught you that? Ah heh heh, nope, don't know who could have possibly taught you that." Fulcrum scowled, optics narrowing slowly. Misfire gave an embarrassed grin at the watching group of Autobots and hurriedly pushed Grimlock's hand down, away from pointing at the K-Con. The purple jet reached up and turned the Dynobot's head back toward First Aid. "Nevermind. We're talking about him, now. Remember him? Try to remember him. He's First Aid. Come on, say it with me. Feeeeeer-stuh Aaaaaaa-duh. Now you try."

"He ferust paid."

"No! First Aid. First! Aid!"

"You know, it's quite alright if he doesn't - "

"No, you don't understand," Fulcrum interrupted the medic, gesturing in a distressed and impatient manner. "If he calls you by the wrong name, he will get angry if someone else calls you by another name." He paused and thought a moment. First Aid probably had no idea what he meant by that. He hadn't been shut into a derelict ship with a Dynobot for a month; the medic didn't know what Grimlock was capable of. "He will attempt to bite the head off of anyone who 'mispronounces' your new name," he clarified.

"...I…see." First Aid stared at the impromptu name lesson. "And…how long will it take to..?"

"It took us two weeks to get him to stop chewing on Misfire's leg every time he forgot to address Krok as 'sir'."

Meanwhile, Krok tried to explain what was going on to Ultra Magnus, who was having trouble reconciling reality as the Scavengers knew it with anything that resembled reality as everyone else saw it. Rodimus could have probably told Krok it was a fruitless task. Ultra Magnus has a special perspective on reality all his own.

"A coward, you say."

"Convicted and everything." The Decepticon officer would have slouched against a wall if he wasn't having a body language contest of some kind with the Duly Appointed Enforcer. They seemed to be trying to determine who could have straighter back struts and more tightly folded arms. The watching crowd of Autobots were giving him full marks for even attempting to out-do Ultra Magnus, even if he didn't stand a chance without a building girder shoved somewhere unmentionable. "He's got the worst case of bad altmode I've ever seen. He'll be a very happy mech if your medics know how to disable his kill-switch."

The towering Autobot went deathly still. "He has a kill-switch."

Krok could never hope to compete at the Ultra Magnus level of robotic body management. The only things being communicated by Ultra Magnus right now were frowning and disapproval. Krok couldn't completely erase exasperation from his own body language. "He's as disarmed as we could make him. We're not suicidal, Magnus. **Especially** not Fulcrum! I suggest letting Spinister run an analysis of your ration grade energon before giving it to him, if your medics won't help him, and he'll be fine."

While Ultra Magnus absorbed _that_ fun fact, Spinister was in the back of the medibay delivering a lecture about Dynobot care to Ratchet. Ratchet stared in speechless affront up until the Decepticon surgeon descended into medical terminology describing what he'd already observed and tried for treatment. The Autobot Chief Medical Officer sucked in a deep vent, smashed his temper down, and started taking notes. Ultra Magnus had to cuff and bodily haul Spinister away from the rather heated debate that developed on whether or not an operation would help the Dynobot recover, and Ratchet followed them to the medibay door still arguing.

All in all, the Scavengers accepted being put in the brig with credible aplomb. Except for Crankcase, but…meh. It was Crankcase.

Ultra Magnus wisely decided to isolate the Scavengers in a cell by themselves. They didn't seem to quite belong with the brute squad that the _Lost Light_ had liberated Temptoria from. The rescued group of oddball Decepticons stared through the bars at the rest of the brig, which was full of battered 'Cons arrested after battle, and Fulcrum looked openly grateful for the bars between them. The small band of mechs was roughed-up, too, but their injuries didn't make them fit in. Despite how tough Crankcase tried to act, and how Misfire exchanged blatantly false stories with the mechs in the nearest cell, the other Decepticons kept looking at the group suspiciously as Ultra Magnus took down their designations and I.D. stats. Maybe it was how cooperative they were being. Maybe it was how they had a K-Con in their midst as if he were hiding behind them.

Regardless, the brig had the feeling of a group of turbofoxes staring through bars at a bunch of petrorabbits. The Scavengers were better off separate. There was just something off about them.

Prisoner induction went well. As compared to what was a question better left unasked.

Krok stiffly gave the requested information and nothing but the requested information. Fulcrum mumbled his way through the induction, attempting to keep his voice lowered enough that the other Decepticons couldn't hear. Crankcase had a half hour argument with the Duly Appointed Enforcer about whether his name should be entered as 'Crank Case,' 'CrankCase,' or 'Crankcase.' And by argument, that meant Crankcase kept going _"Bah!"_ instead of telling Ultra Magnus the proper spelling of his name, which gave the Autobot conniptions. Apparently, Ultra Magnus had a thing for proper rules and regulations, and someone, somewhere, had mis-entered Crankcase's name in the files. Not just once, but twice. Ultra Magnus was furious and determined to correct this travesty.

Misfire, on the other wing, had no problem giving the Autobot all the information he asked for and then some. The jet gave his designation, I.D. stats, date of forging, last paint color, top speed, preferred atmospheric composition, and asked if he could have his siphoning kit back to start distilling some decent high grade. "What? We'll share. Nothing beats a brig party," he said matter-of-factly. The guard on duty behind the Autobot officer gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and Misfire grinned brightly when the rest of the Decepticons stirred, suddenly interested.

Ultra Magnus shuttered his optics slowly and turned to the next Scavenger with the mechanical efficiency of one who was carefully not reacting to what had just been babbled at him. Spinister responded to his questions by punching the wall several times.

"No, no, this is good," Krok assured the Autobot when the mech's perpetual disapproving frown deepened. "He'd have aimed for someone if he was angry."

Misfire and Fulcrum stood watching, arms folded and expressions thoughtful as they evaluated the violence. "Yeah, he's aiming high. I think he's trying to remember a date." Their heads tipped to one side to study the dents in the wall. "Oo, double punch. Definitely a number of some kind."

Everyone just stared until Spinister finished, turned, and calmly handed over his information as if nothing had happened.

Krok immediately got in an argument with the highest-ranked Decepticon there about how to treat subordinates, as the other officer snorted derisively and muttered about how that kind of behavior wouldn't be tolerated in _his_ unit. "You'd prefer I lay into my unit's only medic?"

"**That's** a medic?" The officer gaped at Spinister, who was blinking at a thin trickle of fuel now staining the wall. "How the **frag** did you survive this long?!"

"By not indiscriminately handing out beatings to my mechs," Krok said bluntly.

The larger, nastier-looking Decepticon officer moved to the front of his cell, shoving aside the mechs who didn't skitter out of his way in time. "Are you trying to say something, cogsucker?"

Krok looked pointedly at the Decepticon who'd been knocked down by the other officer. The mech was slowly climbing back to his feet, but he froze as he became the focus of half the brig. "I've never pushed my unit around that way." Krok's chin went up smugly. "Of course, **I've** never had to."

The offended 'Con glared, optics flaring brightly. The mechs in the cell with him pressed themselves as far away from the Enraged Officer Vibes emanating off him as they could get. The poor 'Con at his feet didn't dare move, but it was obvious to the rest of the brig that the pleading look he wore certainly wasn't directed at his own commander. Krok looked smugger. The other officer just looked angrier, not knowing how he'd lost this round but feeling that he somehow had.

Spinister wandered idly through the stare-down. He looked between the two officers, mildly confused, then gave Krok an inquiring look. "No shooting," Krok ordered him. He added, "No poking." The surgeon put his rotor blades back. "No surgery, either!"

By now, the other officer was looking slightly alarmed. The mech at his feet inched out of reach while he was distracted.

Spinister put his field kit back and scratched at his arm until he popped a pebble out from between armor plates. He held it up and turned hopeful optics on his commander. Krok heaved a sigh and shrugged. The rotary mech happily plopped himself down in front of the bars and started aiming. Misfire crowed triumphantly and hiked up a foot to find more ammo for the surgeon as the rival Decepticon officer beat a hasty retreat to the back of his cell, trying to get out of pebble-flicking range. Crankcase snickered meanly and let Misfire lean against him. Krok shook his head at his subordinates but didn't try to stop their fun.

The rest of the Decepticons could only watch, mystified.

Ultra Magnus had been frowning, entering information and heavily disapproving of the byplay. Spinister's removable rotors got a double portion of frowning heaped upon him, but even dumb, violent Decepticon surgeons were afforded respect and more liberties than their comrades. Regulations stated that as long as he caused no problems, Spinister could keep his unpowered, unloaded weaponry and medical equipment. That didn't mean the Autobots wouldn't be watching every single move he made, ready to take them away if he made a hostile move.

"What are we being charged with, anyway?" Fulcrum risked asking when Ultra Magnus finished working.

The Duly Appointed Enforcer had looked down at the slender K-Con and frowned. Not unhappily, this time; frowning was just his default expression. "You are Decepticons."

"Yeah, but…the war's over, right? And we didn't attack you." He gestured at the rest of the brig to indicate the different circumstances behind the two Decepticon groups' arrivals on this ship. "Sure, we lost," Krok flinched violently at the reminder, because that had _not_ been news he'd wanted, "but why are you treating us like criminals? We just want to go home."

"You are Decepticons," Ultra Magnus repeated. There was a loud _ping!_ and yelp as Spinister scored. "The probability that you have committed and will commit further criminal activity is near 100%."

Fulcrum actually scoffed. "I could say that about any mech I've ever met in this war, neutral or Decepticon. Why isn't that Whirl guy down here in the brig, if you're brigging us for potential criminal activity?" The officer in the other celled snarled to himself, holding a hand to the fresh dent on his helm. His mechs were discreetly passing the tiny stones from hand-to-hand and rolling them through the bars back to Spinister. "You have no evidence or actual criminal charges on us, but **he** tried to take Crankcase's **head** off after you'd put the cuffs on us!"

Everyone stared at Fulcrum. The pebble-passing came to a temporary halt as even Spinister stopped and stared. The Decepticons in the other cells probably only saw a K-Class mech indulging in the suicidal bravado common to his frametype, but the Scavengers were stunned. Was their little reformatted techie standing up to _Ultra_ fragging _Magnus_?

"I am a Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord," said the Autobot himself. His stern expression implied that the title was explanation enough.

That could have been true for most mechs, perhaps, but this Decepticon had an ingrained doubt of blindingly agreeing with distant authority figures, now. What the frag. He'd gotten away with disagreeing with the Decepticon Justice Division over fundamental philosophy. Fulcrum could be suspicious of Ultra Magnus, too. "You know, I've never even seen that Accord. For all I know, you're just making up things to justify imprisoning Decepticons in general."

That got an offended huff, and the _Lost Light_'s executive officer turned to leave. "I will send you a copy."

"You do that."

And he did. Ultra Magnus kept his word, at least. Fulcrum accepted the datapad sent down via the change in the brig guards. He sat down in the corner of the cell to read, impressive chin set at a stubborn angle. He exuded grim concentration. Even Misfire left him alone after a brief look-over for more pebbles to torment the cursing 'Con officer next door with.

Fulcrum had this weird thing where he managed to duck any and all expectations everybody held of him. He was a K-Con convicted of cowardice. He was a K-Con _technician_. He was a K-Con survivor. He was a Decepticon who'd never killed an Autobot. He was a Decepticon who didn't really like violence, although he didn't find it morally wrong. He didn't even have a gun of his own. He lived through dying for the Decepticon Cause, only to try and die for a group of Decepticons, and then he'd managed to live through that, too.

He was also disproportionately smart when it came to splitting technicalities.

"This reads like a user manual for politics," Krok heard him mumble. The officer stopped short when he overheard that. After a long, considering look at his unpredictable subordinate, he casually walked across the cell. He took care not to make any sudden movements. He quietly got Spinister and Misfire to stop plinking the rival officer with stones and relocated the rest of his unit to the other side of the cell.

Where he stayed throughout the argument, standing in front of them almost protectively as Fulcrum stalked up to the front of the cell to lay into the Duly Appointed Really Scary Autobot the next time Ultra Magnus came down to inspect the brig. Crankcase, Spinister, and Misfire were content to stay behind him. It was safer to watch such shows from behind a barricade. Some things were too bizarre to get closer to.

The argument baffled the entire brig. It started out reasonable enough, but it delved into legal jargon fairly quickly and led to both mechs raising their voices as they got more passionate on the subject. An hour in, and Fulcrum was railing through the bars at Ultra Magnus, who was tight-lipped and peeved about some sort of footnote in Section 4.11 about jurisdictions. The two mechs bickered back and forth, citing passages and references with viciously pointed fingers and much hand-waving.

Ultra Magnus ended up making a thoughtful retreat to check his own notes. Fulcrum glowered after him before scrunching back into his corner. He muttered ferociously to himself, rereading and scribbling furiously on the datapad.

The Decepticons in the other cells regarded him with a strange sort of awe. He'd just made Ultra Magnus _back down_. Truly, the K-Class were strange and brave.

Misfire tried to swipe the datapad to catch a look, and the K-Con thwapped him upside the head for interrupting. He got a glimpse anyway.

"It looked like some sort of mystic sorcery," the jet whispered to the others. "All the words look normal, but frag if I know what they meant."

"Political jargon," Krok said, peering over at the tan-and-orange mech. "I didn't know you were interested in politics."

"Mm?" Fulcrum didn't look up from his work. There were technicalities to be exploited, here. "No thanks, Spinister. My tanks are topped up."

"I'm Krok."

"That's nice, Spinny."

"What'd I say?" Spinister asked, bewildered.

"Shut up, Crankcase. Can't you see I'm busy?"

The other Scavengers looked at each other. They looked at Fulcrum. Then they quietly settled down in the far corner of the cell and continued whispering to each other.

Altmode kibble fluffed up when Ultra Magnus came back. The way Fulcrum's altmode hinged, he literally got his back up when he was irritated. It was a warning sign that everyone took heed of, this time around. Decepticons throughout the brig were torn between being glued to the front of their cells, or plastering themselves against the far wall, away from the potential blast radius.

"I feel like I should be restraining him," Krok said as his techie bolted upright to take on the huge Autobot. Round Two: go! "Or rescuing the Autobot," he added half an hour later when Fulcrum was shoving his datapad through the bars and stridently browbeating the Duly Appointed Enforcer with footnotes.

It took three hours of jargon-filled debate before Rodimus came down looking for his missing executive officer. He walked in right when the discussion about Subsection 43 degenerated to outright yelling back and forth. The young captain watched them go at it for a while. He looked hopelessly confused by whatever was being argued, but helplessly amused by it all the same.

Ultra Magnus caught him smiling and stormed out in an offended huff. Something about not being a 'figure of fun.'

Rodimus turned to watch him leave. "Can you do that again?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Rrrrr," Fulcrum grumble-mutter-growled, still riled and clutching the datapad like a weapon.

The other four Scavengers were clustered as far away from him as they could get. Krok had collected his three less confrontational mechs behind himself for protection, again, and he shuffled a bit to keep his little flock together as curiosity overrode common sense. He shooed Misfire and Spinister back together as he watched Fulcrum and Rodimus warily. He didn't know what the young captain was up to, but he hoped he wouldn't have to get between his unit's unexpectedly feisty K-Con and the Autobot.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'." The brightly-colored mech walked over and deactivated the bars. "You guys be good, now," he said as he opened the cell. He smirked and waved over his shoulder as he left. "I'll clear your presence onboard. Check in with Ratchet, will you? That head thing probably should be looked at." Crankcase stiffened.

Fulcrum just marched straight to the Autobot on guard duty. "Where's that fragging stylus-chewer's office?!"

"What…just happened?" Misfire asked a few minutes after Fulcrum got his directions and took off to find Ultra Magnus.

Krok made a command decision. "I don't want to know."

And that's how the Scavengers ended up wandering freely around the _Lost Light_.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_ Other, __**other**__ universes: "Misfire/Fulcrum"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

_A/N: I think I may be the only one who doesn't see the Scavengers as a giant orgy waiting to happen. Therefore, time to write it. And…then I ended up not quite._

Crankcase, oddly enough, was the first one to ask. Plus five points for him a sort of gruff directness, but negative ten points for a total lack of tact.

Fulcrum blinked at him, processing the request. It took a moment to get through. "Ah…no, thanks. I'd rather get this done." He jerked a thumb at the console he was reprogramming.

The grouchy Decepticon scowled. "Later, then."

That was the weirdest demand disguising a question that Fulcrum had ever heard. "Uh, I'll think about it," he hedged awkwardly, turning back to his work to hide his incredulous expression. Seriously? No. Now was not the time for this sort of issue. He had work to do, and anyway, someone would probably walk in.

Crankcase muttered something that sounded derogatory but oddly disappointed before clomping out of the bridge like the ray of sunshine he was. The K-Class technician looked up at the ceiling and heaved a relieved sigh. He bent back to fighting the W.A.P.'s computer with a will. He swore the thing was alive and evil.

He got so into his work that he didn't noticed the fingers dancing lightly over his back until there were suddenly overheat warnings flashing on his HUD. "**What** that - ?"

The slender Decepticon shot upright, alarmed, and smacked his back panels against Spinister's chest. Oh! Okay. Spinister was fondling him. That was…weird, but better than getting aroused from troubleshooting lines of code. He liked his job, but he'd never thought that he, well, _liked_ his job. That way. The way that involved fondling.

Speaking of which. "That's not the reaction I was going for," Spinister said, bending over his shoulder to look at him from the side quizzically. He sounded like a scientist fascinated by unpredicted results, and he wasn't moving away from the back panels now pressed flush to his chest. "Are you ticklish?"

Fulcrum turned his head and stared at him for a moment. He absently upped his ventilation system's power, letting the fans disperse the accumulated heat. "No? I was just surprised." That seemed like a legitimate reaction to him. What was with the wandering hands now resting on his shoulders? "I didn't expect you to just walk up and start," molesting him, "touching me. Why are you touching me, Spinister?" He pointedly took a step in the other direction, taking himself out of the inexplicable up-close and personal contact going on.

"You looked tense," the surgeon said, looking at his hands as if bewildered by their sudden emptiness. "I thought you could use a break. Working nonstop introduces undue stress to vital systems."

That peculiarly intelligent shift to the brilliantly dumb mech's speech pattern always took Fulcrum off-guard. "Uh. Well, er, I haven't really been doing much beyond staring at program code. It's not really labor-intensive work. I'm fine." He pasted on a smile and gave a somewhat lame thumbs-up to the surgeon. "Systems are all reading normal. I'll, um, take a break if that changes."

Spinister blinked his optics at him. That definitely looked like disappointment. "Let me know?" he asked a bit forlornly.

"If my system-status changes?" Of course he would. Fulcrum liked running normal. 'Normal' meant 'not about to die,' and he was a big fan of that.

"When you take a break." A hand lifted toward him like Spinister was going to stroke his back again.

The smaller 'Con hastily found a reason to walk cross the bridge. Hello, small screw he'd forgotten to add to the pile when he'd opened up the console casing. "Yeah, sure," he agreed vaguely as he stooped to pick it up. He was close enough to the end of his shift that he wasn't going to take a break before then. Even if the shifts were kind of unofficial, he figured that he could justify stopping work afterward as 'end shift' instead of 'breaktime.' Thereby meaning he could weasel out of letting Spinister know when he was finished.

There was a small, almost mournful hum, and the surgeon reluctantly left him to work.

"Strange," Fulcrum muttered, walking back to the console to put the screw down with the rest. He resumed scanning for errors, but he kept a wary optic on the doorway this time. The bizarre touchiness the other Decepticons in the group seemed to like had always struck him as odd, but this was the first time it was actively making him uneasy. He didn't quite know how to deal with mechs hitting on him. Hitting him, yes; S.O.P. was to run away when _that_ happened. He wasn't sure what S.O.P. was for getting hit on. Running away didn't seem like a viable solution. He suspected that there would be chasing.

*"Fulcrum. Where are you?"*

The techie didn't even twitch when the comm. frequency opened. Krok checking on everyone was so normal by now that he didn't have to think about it. "I'm on the bridge."

There was a pause. *"What that was meant to ask,"* his commanding officer said slowly, *"is why you're not in the officers' quarters with the rest of us."*

Huh? This time, Fulcrum did twitch. He looked over his shoulder and squinted as if that'd help him see across the ship to where Krok was. Apparently with everyone else. "Why's everyone there? Did Misfire make more engex?"

Another drinking party? He unhooked himself and started to muscle the console casing back into place. He couldn't drink anything but ration grade, but he did enjoy watching the rest of the group get completely drunk off their afts. Besides, he sort of felt like they all needed a sober mech present to supervise their drinking. It was only a matter of time before someone got the bright idea to try riding Grimlock through the corridors. That just wouldn't end well for anyone involved.

*"No,"* Krok said, and Fulcrum hesitated, wondering why the officer sounded like he was explaining the obvious to Spinister. *"We're relieving some built-up charge."* _'Duh'_ was heavily implied. As if a group interface were the most natural thing to be doing at the moment. *"Get down here and join us,"* Krok ordered, a bit impatient now. _'Silly mech, get with the program.'_

The K-Con's head cocked to the side. Maybe that explained why Crankcase and Spinister had been hitting on him. It was probably some military unit ritual to deal with delayed combat-high. Huh, well, to each their own. He was glad they'd found what they were looking for with the others, since he obviously hadn't helped them out. A group interface actually worked out pretty well, too. Four mechs could pair off easily enough, and it left the odd mech out to stay alert.

Good thing him and Crankcase could talk technical at each other, or Fulcrum would start to feel left out of group activities at this rate.

"No, that's okay," he said as he put the panel back on the floor and crouched to find the cable hook-up again. "I'm not charged at all, so I'll just keep an optic on things while you guys, uh, have your fun." The timing was inconvenient. He wished they'd have told him about it earlier; he'd have started working later so they'd be back on their feet before he was ready to recharge.

This time, the pause went on for longer. Fulcrum figured Krok had busied himself with something - or someone - and forgotten he'd left the channel open. Or he just didn't want to lose track of his stray subordinate while he was busy. That was a distinct possibility. The tan-and-orange mech glanced up at the ceiling in fond exasperation and shook his head. Krok was the strangest commander he'd ever heard of.

*"…you've got no charge?"* the officer said after a while, however. *"Are you alright?"*

That actually sounded concerned. Fulcrum frowned and looked at his forearm's commlink projector. It was pinging him, but he didn't want to see whatever was happening on Krok's side. What was all this about, then?

"I'm **fine**," he said firmly, refusing the request for comm.-projection. A thought struck him, and he nearly laughed aloud. Oh, rust him. Was it that simple? Did none of these combat-frames _know_? "Sir, no offense, but look up my former frametype's stats when you get a chance. Not now! It's, uh, not urgent. But I'm still a techie under the K-Class reformat, and my frametype's low-charge. We disperse most built-up charge through normal physical exertion." Which was why his frametype hadn't been made for assignment to military units. They just weren't high-energy enough. Most of the charge they accumulated went into their work, and what was left over got burnt off with the minimal physical labor technicians did.

Fulcrum had been doing way too much of that to worry about built-up charge. He'd been running from the D.J.D. as well as working on salvage before and afterward. Anything that had managed to make it beyond that was getting drained by his self-repair system. Compared to what his frametype was made for, the extra labor should have been causing him to recharge more than he already was. Looking at it that way, he was mildly surprised that Spinister had been able to drive his temperature up at all. Heh. He had more endurance than he'd ever known.

He grinned to himself over that. "So, no. No charge." The idea of joining the others while they fooled around was enough to make him smother a chuckle. He'd be in recharge before anyone even cabled in.

*"That…ah. I…see."* Krok sounded abashed. There was nothing quite like mistakenly making assumptions about a mech's sex drive to hammer home that some things really weren't the unit's business. *"I apologize for pressuring you. Thank you for - for minding the ship. I'll relieve you when I'm, uh, finished here."*

"No hurry," Fulcrum said, now just plain amused with the whole situation. "I'll go find Grimlock and bring him up here to keep an optic on when I'm done with this console. Have fun." With that, he courteously cut the channel and went back to work, chuckling to himself.

Military units had some strange customs, he was finding. Good thing they had a tech-head around to keep them in line. Not that he'd ever _say_ that to any of them, but yeah. He was totally thinking it. Krok might lead this unit, but Fulcrum kept everything in working smoothly, be that reminding Spinister that the lights weren't out to get him or hauling Crankcase's snoring chassis over to a berth after everyone else got too drunk to help.

Which he didn't mind. Unofficial second-in-command was a position worth putting up with even Misfire for.

Two hours later, and Fulcrum had Grimlock drawing in greasepencil on a wall. He had no idea what the Dynobot was drawing, but the big lunk seemed absorbed in getting the details right, so that was fine. Fulcrum himself had his feet up on the main display as he leisurely read through what little historical data the W.A.P.'s databanks held. Most of it was pure propaganda, but it was something to do. He figured the others would probably stagger out of recharge in about four more hours. He was looking forward to seeing if Crankcase were any less cranky post-overload. He intended to be a witness if so, because nobody would believe it ever happened, otherwise.

"Hey," came a tired voice from the doorway. The door itself had long since been used elsewhere to patch a hole. Misfire leaned in its place.

Of course Misfire was the first to recover. "Hey," Fulcrum said back. He kept his feet up. The purple jet looked ready to go to sleep on his feet. "Go back and recharge. I've got this."

"Don't wanna," Misfire mumbled as he drifted across the bridge to slump over the back of the bridge's lone chair.

Fulcrum was sitting in it, and he wasn't giving it up. The techie looked at the jet draped partially over him and sighed. Touchy. The whole crew was so fragging _touchy_.

Then there were lips on the side of his neck, and that wasn't just _touchy_. "Wanna 'face you," Misfire murmured into his neck as the K-Con jolted, startled. "Wanna 'face you so bad, and I waited, but you didn't come. Heh heh, 'come.' You didn't do that, either. Why not? Don't you like us?"

The usual babble was accompanied by tiny nibbles going downward. Fulcrum shivered in his seat. A bare hint of teeth nipped, and his hands rose to clutch the arms now wrapped around his shoulders and across his chest. "I…I like you plenty, Misfire," he wavered uncertainly. Although the touching was as blatantly sexual as Crankcase's proposition and as intention as Spinister's groping, this had a different feel to it. The jet kissing back up the side of his neck was taking it slow, exhaustion evident despite the desire crackling off his words. "I'm just, well. Built different."

It felt good. Misfire gently mouthed at a select cable and closed his lips around it to lick and suck before letting it go to drag his kissing attention around to the back of Fulcrum's neck. He nuzzled up under the K-Con's helm, venting softly into the vulnerable area. More kisses and nibbles headed downward. Fulcrum jerked and made a small noise as teeth closed on his main back strut where it was exposed at the open space before his back paneling closed over it. Misfire hummed, tired and pleased by the reaction as his teeth held the strut firmly. His tongue slowly explored, sweeping around behind the support to find all the wires and fuel lines hidden in the hollow interior.

Fulcrum squirmed a little. It felt nice, it really did, but the charge just wasn't there. His mind liked the interest being shown in him, but the body didn't care. His temperature gauge wavered, but it stayed within normal parameters. He was nearing recharge levels. He could and would force himself to remain online to keep watch on the W.A.P., but his body wasn't up to anything more.

And…truth be told, Fulcrum had never been one for interfacing. He did, as he'd said, like Misfire. He liked all of the crew, even Crankcase. Maybe even more than just as unitmates or friends, but that didn't change the fact that he didn't feel anything sexual for them. Spinister could have turned him on with his clever surgeon's fingers, but Fulcrum still wouldn't have wanted him. He liked the surgeon's mind, but the bodily attraction just wasn't there. He'd never truly held that for anyone. He suspected that he could have walked into the middle of the orgy down in the officers' quarters and felt nothing but happiness for their pleasure.

It was common enough in low-charge frames like his that it took him a moment of confusion to understand that Misfire just didn't get what was going on.

So he pushed at Misfire's arms until the jet reluctantly let him go. "No? Did I do something wrong? Come on, just tell me what you like, and I'll - "

"I don't get turned on," Fulcrum explained. That was simplistic, but true. He didn't want to interface, and probably would never want to unless something went wrong with his power converter. "If you've still got charge, go back and get one of the others to frag you."

"They're all in recharge." Misfire still leaned against the back of the chair. Disappointment radiated off him. "I thought you were, I dunno, just shy." His forehelm thunked against the back of Fulcrum's head. "You're not charged? At all?" So hopeful. So sad, when Fulcrum shook his head. Hands snuck back around to hug the K-Con and seat alike. "Awww. That's too bad. I want you to be okay, loser."

That got brightened optics, and Fulcrum twisted to look at Misfire with them. "I'm not broken."

"You're not? But - "

The confusion was kind of cute. "I'm just built this way," the K-Con said patiently. "We've got different frametypes, Misfire."

That ticked over in the jet's head. "I didn't know that was something built-in," he confessed after some thought. "So…you're alright? It's not a short or something, right? Because Spinister can take care of that, y'know."

Dumbaft jet. "I'm fine. I'm not going to 'face anybody, and that's normal for me."

"Oh. Okay." Misfire stiffened suddenly, and he stood up straight, looking down at Fulcrum in horror. "Are you okay with me touching you? I mean, we don't have to frag, I just wanted to hold you 'cause you're all small and warm and kinda cuddlier than Crankcase, and I'm always afraid I'm going to accidentally roll over and knock his brain out - "

"It's okay, you're okay!" the K-Con interrupted him. The concern was actually rather sweet. Especially considering how nobody had ever asked if Fulcrum minded the touchiness. And, thinking about it now, it really was okay. He was fine with the way everyone onboard casually bumped and brushed and grabbed. It was only the molesting that'd been bothering him. "Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that you're a cuddler," he said wryly as Misfire's wings eased back down.

The jet sheepishly smiled and shrugged. "I like knowing I'm not by myself."

Sadly, no other explanation was needed. Misfire had a needy glitch in his software somewhere, and it sure didn't seem like it'd been indulged before joining Krok's unit.

The winged mech stepped around the chair and dropped to his knees at Fulcrum's side. "You'll tell me if it gets weird?" he asked.

That was absolutely weird when said in tandem with a tired flop of arms, wings, and torso over the legs Fulcrum still had propped up on the console. It wasn't a bad kind of weird, however. Just…weird.

"Yeah," the K-Con said, a smile twitching at his mouth. "No problem." There was a jet in his lap, burrowing into him as if the mech could nest there. He was strangely okay with that.

"Does it bug you when the rest of us do it?" Misfire asked sleepily, systems already winding down as he headed toward recharge. He pillowed his head on one arm to look up at his makeshift berth.

Fulcrum glanced over at Grimlock, idly checking on progress on the scrawled picture. The Dynobot was still absorbed in his work. Good. "No," he replied absently, and just as absently ran a hand over Misfire's helm. "It just doesn't do anything for me. It's like when you and Spinister spar, you know? It's interesting to see you guys go at it, but you'd have to force me to get in the middle of that. I'm not made for it."

"Combat or interfacing?" Misfire tilted his head into the absentminded stroking and shut off his optics. "Mmm…"

"Neither, I suppose."

He looked down when no more chatter started, but it seemed that the jet had finally been worn out. It was just not natural for a mech to have that much energy. Fulcrum patted Misfire's helm and went back to reading.

When Krok came to relieve him, the officer found Fulcrum asleep at his post, Misfire in his lap and Grimlock curled around them both.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Other, __**other**__ universes: _"Aren't Scavengers sort of a kink into and of themselves?_"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Krok had stopped dead in the doorway. He'd been there for a good five minutes, watching the impromptu show. "That…was incredibly kinky."

There were still fans going. Spinister and Misfire lay tangled together on the berth, engines happily purring in heavy airframe vibrations that only extended their afterglow. "It really was," Misfire hummed from underneath the bigger 'Con.

Fulcrum glanced over from the other berth and blinked. "All I did was connect your cables."

"Mmhmm," the two flyers agreed contentedly.

"Thanks," Spinister added. His systems were slowly cycling down toward recharge. He always got sleepy after a good frag.

Misfire, on the other hand, would be hyperactive in about two more minutes. He lay under the rotary mech's chest for now and nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

The K-Con shook his head. "No problem."

Krok was still just standing there. Finding out Fulcrum was low-charge had initially unsettled him, as he'd been worried he'd somehow offend the slender mech. The rest of the Scavengers had settled into the typical rampant sexual groove of high-charge fighters trapped in closer quarters, and he encouraged the frequent interfacing. It burnt off charge before it got taken out in more violent ways. He hadn't been sure how Fulcrum would handle the other Decepticons running around fragging every which way from Cybertron.

Turned out that Krok had nothing to worry about. Fulcrum had no problem with everyone interfacing each other's brain modules out. He just…wasn't interested. He didn't avoid it. He didn't comment on it. He didn't really react beyond smiling as if glad they were having fun.

It seemed, however, that he also didn't have a problem with lending a helping hand. Krok had walked in to the officers' quarters to see Fulcrum standing above the tangled, urgently moving pile of limbs Spinister and Misfire had devolved into. The K-Con had been holding a handful of interface cables as he carefully reached between various appendages to hook them in. He hadn't been touching them in an even vaguely sexual manner. He'd just hooked the two mechs up, given them an approving pat on their uppermost parts, and retired back to his berth to continue rewiring the tiny motor he was building.

That was, somehow, both the cutest and hottest thing Krok had ever witnessed. Watching someone taking care of the rest of the unit just turned Krok's engines. He didn't precisely want to frag the techie through the berth, but he wanted - he wanted something physical. He was an aggressive mech. He understood physical contact. He understood the urge to grab and hold, even if knowledge of Fulcrum's disinterest had his interface systems looking elsewhere for partners. It was a little confusing.

"Want some company?" he asked, still standing in the doorway.

Fulcrum looked up from his work again. "Hmm?"

Misfire was making intent little motions that were waking Spinister up in all the right ways. Krok's fans began whirring away as the encore started. "Not in that way," he assured the K-Con, however. "Do you mind if I..?" He went over and put a knee on the berth, edging between Fulcrum and the wall. "Like this?"

The smaller Decepticon shrugged. "Alright?" He amiably shuffled engine parts and himself around until Krok could hold him between his spread legs.

This. Yes, this was what he'd wanted. The officer leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees as he watched his mechs get back to burning off excess energy in the best way. Fulcrum looked at them every once and a while, in the sort of absent way a mech glanced at a vidshow while busy working. Misfire and Spinister were background noise while the K-Con put together his little motor. Krok half-rested his chin on the techie's shoulder and held him in a loose cage of limbs. Holding someone - holding _Fulcrum_ - like this felt different than he was used to. His fans kept whirring, the charge rose, but it wasn't directed toward the mech sitting on the berth with him.

He was used to feeling lust toward his mechs. He wasn't used to this, whatever it was.

Fulcrum looked up and gave him a lopsided grin. Krok brightened his optics back at him before looking back to the free show.

This was…nice.

"You're looking at me funny," Spinister complained from under Misfire, this time around.

The jet laughed. "Yeah! Get over here and do something about it!"

"In a bit," Krok said. He was going to enjoy this difference for a while longer.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

Powerglide and/or Cosmo and/or Siren! Rewind and Chromedome, Blaster, Pipes - _"In heat" continuation_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

There were many things Fortress Maximus wasn't proud of in his long life. There'd been a lot of poor decisions he didn't like talking about. Things had happened. He didn't like to talk about them, either. Holding Rung hostage had only been the latest in a series of lousy life choices.

Holding Whirl hostage was not counted among those bad choices. The only thing that Fort Max regretted about beating Whirl up was that he hadn't finished the job.

He felt that regret most acutely right now, stomping along in the rotary mech's wake with his wrists cuffed and hands held out in front of himself like they were contaminated. He could still feel the tingle of excess charge on two of his fingertips. His optics had seen things that his mind would never be able to unsee. Regrets: so many of them. Some of them contained erotic Minibots, now.

Between the cuffs and the curves, if he came out of this situation with some sort of weird fetish? He wasn't going to be surprised. He'd just blame Whirl.

The ex-Wrecker ahead of him paused at an intersection to check around the corner. "Don't even **look**," Whirl warned him as the warden came up behind him. "I know you got trouble listening to instructions, but - "

"I do not," Fort Max cut him off. Of all people, he was not taking a lecture about issues with authority figures from _this_ mech.

Whirl somehow managed a withering glare before skittering across the intersection. The warden made a face at his back and strode to follow. He caught a flash of color out of the corner of his optic, however, and he took a quick look. With the virus at work, however, a quick look was all the indication of interest the infected required. Oops.

Siren saw him and was immediately calling, "**Hey! Come on over here! We've got room!**"

Up ahead, the gangly blue Autobot leading today's tour of the crew's many sexual positions turned and just _looked_. Fortress Maximus hastily caught up with him. The ex-Wrecker continued looking at him. The bulkier mech shifted, trying not to squirm sheepishly. Whirl's scuffed antenna slowly laid back in peevish irritation.

"**Aw, come back! We could use a fourth - uh, fifth! Sixth? Come back, we'll take goooood care of you!**"

There wasn't much point in playing innocent. Siren was loud enough to rattle their struts. That was one mech onboard that Fort Max could identify by voice alone, no problem.

By now, Whirl's antenna was pinned all the way back. "I warned you."

The warden grimaced. Chalk that up to another poor decision. "Shut up." He'd find a way to blame it on Whirl, later. Somehow.

The rotary mech shrugged. "It's your mental health," he tossed back over his shoulder as he started off down the hallway again. "See what I care if you don't listen." His voice fell to a mutter the massive tank behind him only heard because Fort Max had increased his pace. As much as he hated to admit it, he really didn't want to get left behind. Sticking with Whirl was the better choice. This situation was all kinds of wrong. "Was gonna spare you what I've been put through, but what the frag, who listens to me anyway. Blah de blah, Whirl the violent, Whirl the ex-Wrecker, Whirl the incredibly handsome who's saving your blasted **afts**, you **morons**!"

That last part was shouted at the tangle of mechs blocking the intersection up ahead. Fortress Maximus slowed down warily this time, but Whirl didn't even hesitate. The spindly ex-Wrecker stomped forward and briskly poked at the pile. He seemed to know what he was doing. Under his clinical prodding, limbs separated enough to be distinguishable as actual 'bots instead of just a moaning mound of spare parts. Fort Max edged up behind Whirl and cautiously peered over his head down at them.

The big green and yellow mech on top towered even when kneeling. When he sat up, Whirl had to look upward, and Fort Max had to angle his head in order to see past the big mech's bulk. There were two more Autobots pinned between the green mech's legs, and he seemed intent on taking his time with both of them. The smaller red one was on his front, clawing at the floor and sobbing in huge gulps of air as pleasure ran his systems so hot the air distorted around him. The other mech, larger but just as red, preened under the attention and purred through his speakers.

Whirl deftly avoided the two pinned mechs' pawing and batted away the largest Autobot's hands. They seemed to be coaxing him down to join the two the big mech had already collected. "Not interested! What's your fuel levels?" Bat, bat, push, duck and dodge. Whirl obviously had some experience escaping amorous mechs by now. "Hey! Respond! Fuel levels, now!"

"Thirte-eee-eee - ohhh. Oh. Ah…" That was definitely Blaster. The warden recognized that warble of sound as a familiar voice from the ship's P.A. system. The red Autobot bucked into the orange-red hand that dug in on either side of his Cassette casing and massaged slowly. "Oh Primus, oh **yeah**! Oh frag, yeah! Cosmos you got the **touch**, mmmm."

Cosmos, huh? That would explain why the green Autobot kneeling above the two collected 'prizes' was almost Fort Max's size. Fort Max had him in his _'Welcome to the Lost Light: Please check reality at the airlock!'_ briefing packet. He was listed as a Minibot class orbital platform. He'd dwarf the warden if he transformed.

He certainly seemed to enjoy using his size. "I don't have the touch until you can't talk anymore," Cosmos laughed, optics sparkling merrily as massaging fingers started down Blaster's sides. His other hand was giving much the same treatment to the sleek wingpanels that went down his second lover's back. The flyer had his hands flat on the floor, now, pushing himself up as much as he could to meet the firm pressure stroking every single sensor Cosmos could find. "Now," the happy dominant switched his gaze from Blaster to his more desperately whimpering, squirming partner, "be a good mech and **overload**, Powerglide."

The smallest red Autobot wailed and obeyed.

The jolt of released charge zapped up the cables connecting all three Autobots. Fort Max blinked away an after image from the bright light. Wow. He was vaguely impressed. That was quite an overload. Either Powerglide had been saving himself up, or Cosmos was just that good.

Whirl smacked Cosmos in the arm before the Minibot could recover. "Hand. Hand!" He pressed six cubes into the hand not currently sending Blaster into static-laden sound-clips. The Cassette carrier was incoherent, but also apparently at only 13%. "Y'know what'd be sexy? If you fed them these. And took two for yourself while you're at it," Whirl ordered sternly.

"You know what'd be sexy?" Space-worthy engines rumbled, rattling the floor, and Blaster spasmed as the vibration and intense sound did things to his tuned systems. Cosmos put his hand flat on the Cassette carrier's chest and let the vibration take him from front and back until the red mech's mouth opened in a silent scream. Cosmos never looked away from Whirl as he spoke, however. "It'd be sexy if I found out exactly how many tweaks of those cute little guns'n'rotors it takes to get the center of a whirly-bird."

"Nope, nope, nope!" See Whirl. See Whirl run. Run, Whirl, run.

Whirl skittered back so fast Fortress Maximus had no chance to evade. The warden doubled over as a bad-tempered ball of rotors and unexpectedly sharp elbows took him in the midriff. "Oof!"

That, unfortunately, redirected Cosmos' list of sexy activities from flying blue rotaries to riding tank treads. "Hello, there." Blaster gave one last desperate jolt, legs kicking underneath Cosmos, and overloaded with an unflattering _blat!_ of nonsense noise. The large spacefarer took the opportunity to curl his now-free hand in a beckoning gesture at Fortress Maximus. "I see you over there. Now come over here. It's so much more fun over here, I promise." How could a mech with a face mask leer? Fort Max was being leered at. That was definitely a leer. "Here, there, under me - we can see it all today."

O…kay. The warden wasn't much for being a passive lover, and his interfacing equipment was locked offline, yet still his systems sent a ping of interest.

"Refuel! Now!" Whirl pointed a pincer at the spacefarer. "You do that, and I'll bring - uh, slag, hold on," the ex-Wrecker descended into mutters as he made rapid calculations, rearranging mechs around inside that convoluted head of his. Fortress Maximus was not-hiding behind him as Cosmos visually molested his treads, but that gave him an all-too-good position to overhear things he'd rather not have. "Not Chromedome, 'cause he'd probably squish Rewind. I'll never get near Pipes with **you** around. Swerve's busy and Ambulon will get me if I go back. Like the Pit am I trying to get Red Alert out of his office; it's like a fragging sealed box full of sirens and lights and I think he was 'investigating' three 'traitors' last time I busted down the door. There was a line to get in. I had to cut. Who's the pointy guy, what's his name, Perve-ceptor had him for a sniper rifle-rest last I saw, I can bring them both out of the lab at the same time if we - Atomizer!"

Name remembered, Whirl straightened and raised his voice again. "You three refuel, and I'll bring you Atomizer. You can - you can, uh, I don't know." Pincers gestured aimlessly, then made a strange sawing motion through the air. "Use his bow to play him like an instrument or something," the ex-Wrecker bargained, retreating another step as Cosmos turned the not-leer on him.

The Minibot paused, intrigued. Fortress Maximus shuffled back as he was elbowed again, optics squinting as he tried to remember who Atomizer was. There weren't that many mechs who used bows, so -

Whirl's odd sawing motion suddenly clicked, and the mental image registered. The warden choked on thin air.

"Hmm." Cosmos absently pet the mechs recovering between his knees. "That could be fun. I do like music." Speakers peeped small sounds as their rims were traced gently. "And I most certainly like to, mmm. Play."

"Oodles of fun. All you gotta do is stop 'facing their bolts off long enough to fuel up!" Whirl pointed at Blaster and Powerglide while pushing Fort Max back another step. "He can still reach us," was hissed under an ex-vent at the larger Autobot behind him, and the warden's optics widened even further. He raised his cuffed hands up out of arm's-reach and took two big steps back, and Whirl nearly toppled over backward in a scrambling retreat of his own as Cosmos snatched for his leg. "No! Fuel! Fuel for Atomizer, that's the deal!"

The green Autobot stopped halfway to his feet and sank back onto his knees, reluctant to leave his gathered prizes. Whirl windmilled his arms and caught his balance using Fort Max's hip. Blaster shifted and murmured. Cosmos looked down at him and sighed heavily. "Well…"

"It's probably taking them so long to recover because they're underfueled," Fortress Maximus said when the blue rotary mech hanging off his side seemed ready to start screaming in frustration. "Maybe Blaster could," he couldn't believe he was suggesting this, but Cosmos was giving him that assessing look that spoke of harems and joining them, "lick it off him?" He nodded at Powerglide, who still hadn't moved after being knocked out by that overload.

Cosmos lit up. "Oh, what a marvelous idea! It's a deal!" Inspired, he looked down at his lovers, and the pulse of arousal he sent down the cables sent both pinned mechs right back into arching and wriggling once more. Big orange-red hands delicately put four of the small cubes down above their heads as Cosmos fed his share of the energon into a fuel intake on his side. "Bla~aster, time for a ga~me…"

"Good job," Whirl said as he led the warden past Cosmos. He couldn't tell if the mech were being sarcastic.

One of Fort Max's optics twitched. He was so not proud of this moment in his life.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

Overlord & Tarn - "_Pharma"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Overlord won, in the end. The Decepticon Justice Division tracked him down, they planned it, and they got overconfident. Overlord won. It wasn't _easy_, but neither was it the greatest fight of his life.

"Disappointing," the Phase Sixer rumbled to himself as he dropped the rest of Tesarus' body to the ground. He'd used it to beat Helex into deactivation, slowly and messily. It had been satisfying, in a rhythmic way. The mech's head was halfway across the battlefield, where the walking grinder's distinctive red optical array now impaled Kaon. The blind mech had optics, now, but he still could not see.

Overlord strolled across the torn ground. The damage he had taken himself was not inconsequential, but it wasn't life-threatening. Unlike the damage he'd done to Tarn, however, it wasn't enough to disable him.

Tarn lay where he'd been tossed aside, Vos' altmode still speared through his upper thigh. The gunformer was dead, spark crushed inside its casing as Overlord had joyfully turned him on his fellow D.J.D. members while gradually crumpling the gun's stock in one cruel hand. The helpless screams of a mech pushed past dignity had been a pleasure to listen to. That shrill voice set against the bass beat of explosions and enraged yells had made for a beautiful fighting soundtrack. Turning Vos against his own had a delicious sense of betrayal to it, even after the mech himself had died and only his corpse could be used.

Overlord had used Tesarus to kill Helex and Kaon. Vos had been used to disable Tarn.

He had won by turning the D.J.D. against each other. It was wonderfully ironic that the close-knit loyal Decepticon fanatics had been their own downfall.

Still, as amusing as this battle had turned out, Overlord found himself disappointed by how easily he'd won. The violence had been far more straightforward than he'd expected. Even the ambush hadn't caught him by surprise.

But, no matter. The day wasn't over yet. Tarn was still alive, after all.

"All those threats, come to naught," he mused as he braced one foot on indented chestplates. He reached down and yanked the twisted gun barrel out in a spray of fluids. "I expected more. Tsk."

Tarn's optics twitched behind that ridiculous mask, but the mech tried to show no reaction. He had likely resolved to die a dignified devotee of the Decepticon Cause. Overlord chuckled, bending down again to grasp one dislocated arm. He stood and began walking toward the ship he'd shot down much earlier today. The _Peaceful Tyranny_ had landed mostly intact. It would make as good a place to do this as any. Tarn jerked and coughed as he was carelessly dragged behind the Phase Sixer. A wide swath of leaked fluids marked their path.

"I wonder what your real name is?" Overlord asked idly, not expecting or receiving an answer. He'd punched that irritating vocalizer into spitting static when Tarn first tried that cute spark-trick. If he remembered, he'd ask later, when the stubborn Decepticon became more amendable to participating in conversations.

He would. They both knew he would. He'd be eager to talk, to share any and everything he knew. The D.J.D., of all mechs, knew that pain always triumphed over resolve. Mechs started out determined to preserve their precious self-image. They learned, soon enough. It wouldn't take Tarn long at all to deny Megatron, deny the Cause, deny anything that he thought would make Overlord happy to hear denied. He'd do anything to end his suffering.

Overlord did hope there was recording equipment intact aboard the ship. He'd rather like to make a nice video of Tarn's inevitable collapse. The Decepticons on the List might celebrate him as a hero, which would be nothing short of hilarious, and the rest of the simpering ranks could cower in fear to see their diehard figurehead cut down. It would be a potent message for Megatron:

_'You've sent your best lackeys. Now come fight me yourself.'_

If he had the patience for that sort of game, the Phase Sixer would consider sending what was left of Tarn crawling back to Cybertron to deliver the message personally. That would be a mercy, as Megatron would grant the mech a quick shot through the spark. It was a tempting thought, but if Overlord were _that_ patient, he'd keep the loyalist at his side to witness the final fight. The mech would cease to be amusing long before that happened, however.

"No, I think I shall kill you eventually," he said aloud as he hauled his victim up the gangplank crookedly extended from the crashed ship.

He paused at the top and lifted Tarn up to press against the ship's hull. The defeated Decepticon hung by one arm before him. The shoulder joint grated, ball and socket scraping in harsh metallic noises against each other, and Overlord shook him to hear the snap of some cable giving way. The red optics behind the mask - he would have to tear that off later, but only once he had something to record that unmasking for everyone to see - glared fiercely.

Overlord stepped closer, pressing his helm's cheek guard to the purple mask. "I will kill you eventually, Tarn, that I promise you," the exaggerated lips the Phase Sixer was famous for whispered directly into one audio. "I will kill you, but it will not be soon. What is your record? Your darling group of torturers held yourselves as the most fearsome of judges, but your record for torture is so short. Three days, I believe, is it not?" Those thick lips curled into a sadistic smile, close enough to be felt as Overlord turned his face so that they nearly kissed the side of Tarn's mask. "You will beg for death by the third day, but I won't grant it. Not even a week will be enough." His voice lowered to a breathy purr full of sickening anticipation. "My longest record was at Garrus-9. Fortress Maximus, as you probably know. The prison warden?"

There was a faint breath of air against his cheek, like vent fans involuntarily faltering. Overlord threw his head back and laughed. "You do know! I thought you might. I kept him alive for **years**!"

Now he did kiss Tarn's mask, tender and mocking. He laughed again when the smaller Decepticon struggled to head-butt him, broken body giving a pathetic surge of futile effort. A spurt of vibrant green lubricant came out of the mask's mouth slit as Tarn tried to clear his throat. "Our time together will not be a record, I fear. Garrus-9 did have medical facilities, which certain of my favorite activities do require if you," he patted a loosely-flopping tread, "are to survive."

That, oddly, caused Tarn to go still. It was only for a split second, barely enough to catch, but Overlord noticed.

His optics narrowed. "Ah?"

It took some time to find the cause, but they had time. There was no way for Tarn to stop him, and Overlord had every intention of exploring the ship. He took it slow, because the creeping reality of utter defeat needed time to properly permeate through Tarn's head and devour every lingering hope. Overlord wanted the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division to truly appreciate how low he'd been brought by one of the so-called 'traitors' off his precious List. He wanted Tarn to _know_ that there was no possible way to change his fate. Tarn knew the agony was coming, but a real torturer knew to choose the correct method if the victim's mind was to break before the body.

Overlord made sadism into an art.

Browsing through every Decepticons' personal quarters got no reaction beyond hatred. Finding the recording equipment he wanted sent his victim rigid in apprehension, but no. No, there was something more. There was something he hadn't found yet.

Tarn's self-repair had cleared enough of the slurry of fuel and lubricant off his vocalizer that a gurgling snarl got out when Overlord approached the door of what he thought led to the ship's medibay. The Phase Sixer looked down at him, optics inquiring, before shifting his grip from one limp arm to the mech's throat. Tarn grimaced behind the mask. Although Overlord didn't crush his vocalizer to slag yet, it was clear that his specialized spark-killing voice would not be allowed to speak again.

The massive mech looked down at his victim. The reaction had been unexpected. "Interesting," he said as he keyed open the door.

It was a medibay. Well-stocked, if in shambles because of the crash. It seemed that an entire cabinet full of supplies had shaken open and emptied onto the floor. Not much appeared to be broken, which might be useful later. How fortunate. It certainly would have been inconvenient if the medic himself had taken injury, after all. _'Who repairs the repairmech?'_ as the saying went.

"I did not know that Autobots were a standard Decepticon medical fixture," Overlord observed in mild surprise.

Wary blue optics stared back at him over the repair berth in the center of the room, but the Autobot held his tongue. Someone had gone through the trouble of training him, it seemed. From the protesting rasp and flutter against the palm of Overlord's palm, it had probably been Tarn. Oh, that could come in handy.

The Phase Sixer turned at the door and walked along the wall, studying the medibay itself and letting the Autobot get a good look at him. The mech didn't move but to keep his optics on the massive invader. Overlord let him stare while he took in what was a very well-equipped if small medical station. There were enough supplies and expensive tools in this room to fill a minor clinic; far more than necessary for keeping five Decepticons in good repair. Interesting, indeed.

He could see why Tarn would want to prevent him from finding this room, given the implications of having medical supplies on hand - and even better, a medic. There was the small matter of the medic's cooperation, but Overlord wasn't fazed by that. He was quite aware of the aura of menace he gave off, covered as he was in his own wounds and other mechs' gore, not to mention the fact that was dragging the captain of this very ship across the floor in his wake.

So he felt it would be overkill to bother with threats when it was obvious who was in control here. Instead, when he'd inspected half the room, he simply stopped in front of the Autobot and looked down.

The medic stayed still under his regard: white, red, blue, and pristine but for the tarnished black chains around his arms and throat. From the way his winglets stayed perfectly still, he was aware that he didn't stand a chance at escape. The D.J.D. must have taught him that difficult lesson first, with their chains and the inhibitor claw Overlord could see clamped onto his back over the main turbine assembly. They had clipped his wings, the poor flyer, and caged him. He had the look of a mech who'd _been_ someone once, before they took him as their own.

Overlord reached out with his free hand and used one huge finger to tip the little Autobot's face upward. There was only the slightest hint of resistance before blue optics flicked down to glance at the Decepticon dribbling fluids at their feet. After that, the flyer obediently let his head be turned this way and that as Overlord looked him over.

When he'd seen enough, the Phase Sixer made the mech look directly at him. "Do you know what I am, Autobot?"

Blue optics dimmed, fear stuttering through even a medic's professional stoicism. The chin Overlord balanced on his forefinger dipped against it. There weren't many who didn't know the Decepticon Empire's most terrifying weapons on sight: the Phase Sixers, the undefeatables.

"Do you know **who** I am?" Another miniscule nod pressed against his finger. Good. This medic might prove to be more than a moment's amusement for him, then, novel as that thought was. "And what," Overlord asked, deep voice dropping into a rich darkness where ugly terrors lived, "might you be?"

Those terrors visited the medic, sending the tiniest of shivers through his winglets. His mouth opened, then snapped closed as the question really registered. 'What,' not 'who.' Overlord approved of that second thought. A medic who thought under pressure was far more useful to him than one who let fear drive intelligence away. A medic who bowed to the reality of his situation might be worthy of _being_ used.

This medic was proving himself more worthy than most. Bitter and terrified, but with nothing left to lose, he met Overlord's optics steadily before jerking his head at the mech hanging from the Phase Sixer's fist. Resignation kept his voice from shaking as he quietly replied, "I **was** his toy."

It was good answer, for a mech who knew how the Decepticons functioned. To the victor went the spoils. He was no longer Tarn's toy to play with. He belonged to whomever claimed him.

Overlord tapped the smart little thing under the chin, acknowledging the tactful answer with a shallow nod. His hand left the Autobot's face, and the massive warlord turned his head to look at the broken body he held almost quizzically. "This mech?" He lifted the crippled Decepticon easily, slowly righting him until Tarn dangled by his neck. For someone Overlord's size, Tarn's weight was negligible. Fuel bubbled, dripping from split lips and shattered dental molds onto a malfunctioning vocalizer, and Tarn's defiant snarl turned into a defeated gurgle. Overlord chuckled, letting his amusement roll around the medibay until Tarn drowned in it. "How did he toy with you?" he asked the Autobot.

Blue optics darted between them. This was not rescue. There was no hope. This was a new owner casually inspecting his new property. It was only a matter of if the property were disposed of with the old owner, tortured and killed.

The Autobot's nervously licked his lips before his face went completely neutral. "Am I to show you?" It was an offer as much as a question. The words came out leeched of anything but bleak determination to survive.

Overlord did like to hear that tone of voice from a mech.

He gave the small mech a leisurely once-over. Blue optics dropped, burning anger-dark but submissive. Polished winglets hiked up before reluctantly fanning out as the Autobot straightened his stance to display himself for the Phase Sixer's viewing pleasure. The sight was one Overlord fully enjoyed. The chains were a nice touch, adding a lovely sense of helplessness to the overall picture. The D.J.D. had captured themselves a very pretty flyer for their cage.

Beauty had no use to him if there was nothing supporting it, however. "Do the symbols on your wings mean something, Autobot, or are they merely decorative?"

That earned a flinch, and Overlord's optics watched intently as blue hands curled into fists. Those hands were strange, now that he paid attention to them. They were fine instruments, he could tell, but they looked too new. They stood out, even against the luxuriously waxed state of a clearly pampered pet. The hands of a medic were his pride, but pride became a mech's weak spot when imprisoned. There was a story in those hands that Overlord intended to hear. Not right this moment, but soon.

"I'm the top surgeon in my field," the Autobot confirmed shortly. His optics dimmed to a dusky hue as if shamed by that fact. Or, perhaps, the circumstances under which he was admitting it. A skilled Autobot surgeon chained to the wall in a Decepticon ship was obviously valued more for abilities other than his skill at surgery.

"I am in need of repairs, as you can see," the Phase Sixer said, gesturing at himself with his free hand. The damage didn't hamper movement, but still annoyed him. His self-repair could deal with it given enough time, but there was no reason to live with injuries for days when there was a competent medic willing to repair him. Dim blue optics gained a sliver of hope as they looked up at him. "I'm a generous mech when pleased, surgeon. Agree to repair me, and I will spare you." It was a merciful promise in and of itself, if the Autobot knew anything of his reputation.

It seemed he did, as the flyer seemed to shrink into himself. The hope in his optics went hollow. Overlord did not leave survivors. "I will repair you," the medic said despite his despair, because agreeing meant he'd live at least a short time longer. It was unlikely that this was the first time he'd made this bargain. It couldn't be coincidence that the D.J.D. had chained him in this particular room, after all. Why waste having a medic on hand to render services?

The Phase Sixer's laughter boomed through the medibay again, and the Decepticon still dangling from his fist gurgled as fingers worked over damaged components, searching for the right grip. Tarn gasped and feebly struggled as Overlord found what he was feeling for. The Autobot's optics went wide and mesmerized, suddenly fixated on that hand. Fingers tightened, and the medic strained against his chains, expression starvation-hungry as Overlord took his time crushing that specialized vocalizer into sparks and fire. The mouth behind the purple mark silently gaped open to leak fuel and lubricant instead of sound. Fluids dripped out from under the mask's cover. Smoke billowed until metal collapsed inward and smothered the burning circuitry. Tarn gave one agonized convulsion, limbs twitching violently, before going limp.

Overlord locked optics with the Autobot as Tarn was carelessly dropped to the floor between them in a tremendous crash. "You say you're the top surgeon in your field." He pushed the weakly moving Decepticon toward the trembling, heavy-venting medic with one foot. "Can you keep this wretch alive?"

Blue optics seared suddenly alight. "Yes. Oh, yes."

The Phase Sixer stepped over his defeated foe and bent to twist his finger in the chain around the Autobot's neck. "No matter what I do to him?"

The medic smiled up at him and didn't even hesitate when pulled forward to meet the looming warlord. "On one condition."

Overlord stooped to look at him optic to optic, smile to smile. "Do you think you're in any position to bargain?"

The threat teased over the smaller mech like a stroking hand, and wings flexed sleekly under it. "I want to watch," he said, breathing the words out as if they were his most spark-felt desire, and Overlord drank in his hatred.

Pretty flyer. Pretty, murderous flyer. This was the kind of beauty Overlord could appreciate: surface-deep because everything underneath was raw, wounded emotion. He preferred his caged pets packed to the brim with useful abilities, yet rotten to the core. If he was careful, this fragile little glitch wouldn't self-destruct until he was done using the brittle beauty for every ounce of pleasure he could wring free.

Plush lips curved, nearly touching the medic's matching smile. This Autobot would bend to his will gladly and not even notice he served a new master, because it would give the medic exactly what he wanted. The D.J.D. had brought about their own downfall in every way.

There was a faint scraping at their feet as Tarn tried to drag himself toward the door. A rubbery _hiss-pop_ signaled the seal on a main tube of some kind giving way at last, and they both recognized the liquid sound of energon gushing across the floor. Overlord didn't look away as he ripped the chain from the medic's neck. "That can be arranged."

"Then I'd be delighted to keep him alive as long as you like," the flyer said, slipping away to fetch the tools of his trade and begin working.

Overlord's deep, dark laughter swirled around the medibay, burying the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division in defeat. Another laugh joined it a moment later, like bright wings dancing over a grave.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


	7. Pt 7

_Blaster is a Pokemon Master; young Autobots these days have no money sense; whom Rewind might have found; Misfire kisses his ego goodbye; Fulcrum dies (twice); Swerve and Tailgate Do Construction; Cyclonus avoids the aftermath; Octane and Sandstorm go adventuring; Cyclonus and the Armada keep hitting the 'snooze' button (until they don't); Cyclonus hates Soundwave; the combiners can't figure out why they're always under supervision; the Primus Adoption Society starts up; 2 out of 2 prisoners agree that Overlord is horrible._

* * *

**Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 7

**Warnings: **Uh…everything? I'm sure there's something to offend everyone found somewhere in this part.

**Rating: ** R

**Continuity: **IDW & G1

**Characters: **Scavengers (Misfire, Fulcrum, Krok, Spinister, Flywheels, Crankcase), Bob the Insecticon, Blaster, Sunstreaker, Smokescreen, Optimus Prime, Red Alert, Prowl, Jazz, Ironhide, Ratchet, Rewind, Swerve, Tailgate, Cyclonus, Armada, Sweeps, Scourge, Galvatron, Octane, Sandstorm, Scrapper, Hook, Hun-Grr, Onslaught, Vortex, Soundwave, Trypticon, Overlord, Fortress Maximus.

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

**Motivation (Prompt): **Random Scavenger prompts from Tumblr, some G1 Season 3 prompts, a few theoretical musings, a commissioned fic, and some silliness.

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**[* * * * *]**

Bob the Insecticon - "Pokemon"

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Sunstreaker was a jerk.

That wasn't a surprise. He was also a traitor and a torture victim and had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder bad enough to make him stand out in a ship full of war-traumatized soldiers. Sunstreaker somehow managed to be special in all the worst categories. It was like winning the award for flattest pancake after a cityformer stomped through. Everyone was flattened, but he'd somehow come out the worst. Yay?

So it wasn't a surprise that he'd exceeded in the jerk category of life as well. He was still beautiful, but he was a Rodimus Star away from being the top jerk in the faction.

Taking all that into consideration, it wasn't surprising Autobots throughout the _Lost Light_ stared at him when he entered a room. Red Alert twitched strongly enough to almost qualify as flailing. Ultra Magnus made no secret that the mech was under observation.

Blaster never even looked at him. Because as much as mechs stared at Sunstreaker for everything the golden Autobot had done or was, Blaster wasn't interested. If he was seen looking in Sunstreaker's direction, it was because he was staring at his companion. Not that everyone didn't gape in equal measure at one of the fragging _Swarm_ trotting tamely at someone's heels, but the Communication Officer had a disturbing glint to his optics.

A disturbing glint of acquisition. Chromedome would have recognized it if he'd noticed Blaster watching Bob. For a while, until Chromedome had all but wrapped himself around his conjunx endura like some sort of protective shield, the boombox had watched Rewind with much the same look. Blaster was a carrier of Cassetticons, but most Cassetticons didn't start out with that frametype. That made carriers constantly on the lookout for potential reformat candidates.

It wasn't that Blaster wished ill on Rewind, but he'd discreetly been looking for a chance to ask the friendly, active, always-recording little archivist to consider signing a reforge consent form. It'd never be important if the memory stick's current frame didn't become heavily damaged, but Blaster didn't want the chance to collect Rewind pass through his fingers. Chromedome's interference and jealous watchdrone routine had made approaching the mech difficult, but he wasn't going to give up that easily.

Blaster could wait. He was a patient mech. Carriers had to be, when they set out to collect. Soundwave favored unwilling subjects, collecting the ones he wanted ruthlessly, but Blaster patiently stalked those he wanted to potentially reformat.

Well, he preferred to call it 'courting' rather than stalking. He knew that it was kind of creepy being tagged for reformat by a carrier, but it was the sincerest compliment possible for those that understood the mentality behind the frametype. There just weren't many who understood carriers, so it kept being creepy. To be fair, he didn't force anything. He would never make Rewind sign the emergency medical reforge form, much less hope for the kind of injury that'd result in acquiring a Cassette. He just wouldn't stop asking, either.

Chromedome couldn't get in the way forever. Blaster could wait.

In the meantime, he set his sights on another candidate: Bob.

The Insecticon was small. Its construction wasn't unique in terms of how the mutation had distorted the victims of the Swarm, but it was odd for Cybertronian frametypes. The quadrupedal structure made it unique because it lacked a bipedal transformation. It lacked a transformation entirely, although everyone knew it still had a T-cog buried in its body. It just didn't connect to anything. Everyone knew, because half the ship had been there talking and patting Bob to keep it calm after Swerve had gotten Sunstreaker utterly fendered that one night so that Ratchet, Perceptor, and Hoist could scan the living bolts off the Insecticon right there in the bar.

It wasn't that Sunstreaker was unwilling to let his pet be examined - Ultra Magnus would have never let the Insecticon on board otherwise - but it was impossible to separate the two, and nobody was comfortable holding a discussion under Sunstreaker's narrow optics. Bob had refused to leave its recharging master but chittered happily under the attention. That'd been adorable even before Tailgate got it to purr. The analysis group had called on Blaster's expertise with small builds, and he'd attentively listened in on the discussion while the scans kept running. He'd even snuck in some petting when Ratchet carefully rolled the little guy over onto its back to unfold the spiky legs and prod its belly.

So, yes, Bob still had a T-cog. That was weird for a technimal, but that's because it'd once been a mech. It just…wasn't one anymore. Instead, it was some fusion of the two. The mixture was one that Blaster found appealing. The Insecticon was bulky in the forequarters, with menacing, heavy claws, but for all its armor, the thing was little. The way it hunkered down, it was hard to get a good look at sometimes. A mech could get a decent perspective on it if he were willing to spy on Sunstreaker enough, however.

Blaster was willing. Frag, he was practically compelled. Blaster normally went along with his carrier protocols, but the strength of the need to collect had surprised him this time around. The Insecticon - Bob, and wasn't that a cute ethnic name? - was just a tad bit bigger than Steeljaw, but tougher and less intelligent. Blaster's recognized it as requiring protection and guidance, and he almost ached to provide that. Yet it was obviously useful and more than a mindless beast. Sunstreaker had proven it was both trainable and loyal.

The longer Blaster watched it, the more he could picture how the reformat would work. There'd be some cerebral tweaking, of course, to push it toward the mech side instead of the hive-like Swarm mentality, but it'd be a good Cassetticon. The transformation would be simple enough, making him a thick Cassette shaped more like a brick than a slim disk, but it would change the Insecticon's rootmode relatively little. The toughest part would be the spikes. Those would probably have to go unless they could be made retractable.

Bob wouldn't be like the rest of his Cassetticons, but oh, did Blaster want it. It was so small and - and _cute_. He could see how it'd fit into his life and a custom-made docket in his chest.

That only left the question of how one went about getting a Bob. Hmm. The creature was loyal, no doubt about that. Loyal to Sunstreaker, which was the difficult part. Sunstreaker didn't let things go, grudges or people. Blaster doubted that the golden frontliner would let Bob stray, even if Blaster could somehow lure it away.

Across the bar, the stubborn mech in question idly dropped a few energy slips onto the floor. His pet Insecticon immediately pounced upon and devoured them, then daintily cleaned its tiny set of forearms. The delicate arms were groomed carefully, pulled through the grid in front of Bob's mouth and tugged loose, stripping stray bits of energon from the finger joints. All four optics turned upward hopefully, but Sunstreaker had gone back to watching Whirl badgering Trailbreaker at the bar. When no more treats seemed forthcoming, the Insecticon settled back down under its master's chair.

Its forearms made small grasping motions as Bob purred into a nap. _Purr purr_. Grab. _Purrrrrr._

The cute was magnetic. Blaster found, somewhat to his surprise, that he'd gotten up and was heading across the bar. Primus, he wanted that little thing. He wanted it so bad. He was a patient mech, but taunting him with a reformat candidate who didn't need a consent form, just an owner? That was a tease that'd test the patience of better mechs than Blaster.

With some effort, he slowed his hunting stride to a casual saunter before he reached Sunstreaker's corner table and its concealing shadows. "In the mood for some company, sunshine?" he asked the frontliner, giving a winning smile.

Arrogance couldn't cover shock, or the uncertainty of a mech who had no idea why he was being approached. It was, in a sad way, sort of endearing. Sunstreaker was a jerk and the failure champion in the worst off-Olympic events. He'd been rather shunned since coming aboard the _Lost Light_. For longer than that, probably. That was kind of pitiable.

"Can't stop you from sitting down," Sunstreaker grunted, recovering as quickly as he'd faltered. He tacked an admonishment on when the other Autobot drew out a chair across from him. "Don't call me that."

"Whatever you say, Sunstreaker." Blaster leaned down and chirruped at Bob. "Heeeey, Bob-O. C'mere, you." Bob's antenna perked up, and the purring increased as it scurried over for petting. It pushed its head into the boombox's hand, trying to get an antenna rub. Blaster chuckled and obliged it, pinching the little yellow antenna between his fingers until the critter melted into an ecstatic puddle of chirring. The Insecticon liked attention. Great. He could work with that.

When he looked up, Sunstreaker was watching him with the same starvling look Bob had directed up at the source of treats. Except that Sunstreaker was a gorgeous example of a mech, not a potential Cassetticon, which raised a whole slew of other options suddenly. The protocols jumping online had nothing to do with being a Cassette carrier. He gave Sunstreaker a sly up-and-down look, and the attention-starved look in the golden frontliner's optics increased when Blaster tipped him an appreciative nod. The mech was truly as beautiful as he was vain, and as big of a glitchy afthead as he was needy for positive attention.

Blaster's smile got wider. Maybe this was less of a situation where he lured Bob away from its current owner, and more of the adoption of a lover's pet.

Bob looked up at its master, and the purring boosted to a constant rumble. Teensy forearms reached out to grasp the fingers Blaster waggled at it, and oops, his hand just happened to be knocked to the side to brush over gold armor. The purr turned to a warble as Sunstreaker noticeably straightened up in pride as the attention soaked in. Ah. So, make the master happy, and the bug was happy.

It was a good thing Sunstreaker couldn't see Blaster's face when he cooed at Bob. The disturbing glint had become a full-on greedy gleam, and plans were coming together.

Yes, he could work with that.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Rewind & Fulcrum - disposable frames_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

They looked through the brig's glowing energy bars at each other, and Rewind wondered what the Decepticon saw. Just another short Autobot; a relic from a former era; an archivist still persistently pursuing his function? What did Rewind amount to in the optics of this mech?

It hadn't been important a day ago. A day ago, he'd been curious about the K-Class Decepticon in the brig, but that'd been it. Now he knew. He knew, and he didn't know what to think. He carried the information like any other piece of data, but he didn't know how to process it. So he'd come down here on the pretense of gathering more information, and he'd ended up blurting out what he now knew.

"That's not my name," Fulcrum said. He glowered darkly when Rewind gave a weak shrug. "It's **not**. Like I told you before, my name is Fulcrum. It's always been Fulcrum!"

"Not always," Rewind insisted quietly, replaying the file in his own mind. "Not before…not before you were reformatted. You can't..?" He hated how hopeful he sounded, but he couldn't help himself. Mnemosurgeons, as Chromedome had confided in him, were neither infallible nor always as thorough as they could be when doing hasty mind alterations. Especially when it came to erasing someone's past. The drips and dribbles of memory lingered in a mech's cache like dreams remembered distantly upon waking. "You don't remember anything?"

_'You don't remember me?'_

"I was reformatted exactly once in this war, and it was by my own side!" The taller mech turned and slammed a fist against the wall in frustration, refusing to even acknowledge the Autobot's pained expression. "I know who I am, and I'm Fulcrum. Ask anyone!"

Ooo, time for an awkward pause. Because Rewind had asked the right person at last, and the truth had come out. The truth that Fulcrum denied because the memories weren't there, and the truth Rewind wished wasn't true.

"Give him time," Rung had advised when Rewind panicked and turned to him for help dealing with it. "Right now, he's surrounded by the enemy and doesn't dare trust anything. He must go through denial before reaching any form of acceptance. Let him rage against the facts. They will still be facts when he's exhausted his attempts to refuse their truth."

He wished he'd taken the psychotherapist's advice now instead of heading straight down here. "Well…okay." Time for a topic shift. "So, um, what made you decide to get reformatted into a K-Con? What's it feel like to be a bomb?"

Tactless questions about personal information served as a handy way to change the subject. Luckily, Rewind could always use more information. Information about this mech in particular was all the more precious, if he thought about it. And really, what mech didn't like talking about himself? Domi - _Fulcrum_ was a Decepticon. A K-Class one, at that. There had to be an interesting story behind how he'd become a fanatic! It was probably exciting and full of reasons Rewind might even understand. Reasons for why the brilliant friend he'd once idolized had become a fanatic willing, even _eager_ to die for the Decepticon faction. A fanatic whose sole purpose in life was killing as many Autobots as he could when he died.

Primus, it was really depressing to look at this mech with memory superimposed over top of him.

Especially when that narrow look glared back at him. Fulcrum had half-turned to look over his shoulder, and he raked a glare down the small Autobot's body like he could cut him apart with optic power alone. "You're a memory stick, right?"

"Oh, wow." That surprised a laugh out of Rewind in a burst of wild hope. "Not many mechs can I.D. my altmode on sight! That's - that's amazing! How did you know?" Please let it be a stray memory, please!

The impressive chin on the mech only enhanced the sneer he pulled. "No, what's amazing is that you made it this long. You were made to be used and discarded. Limited use kind of frametype, am I right?"

Rewind had frozen, still recording but unable to react. Those words had all the worst connotations of a different time, fresh in the forefront of his thoughts and now weaponized to hit him like a sledgehammer. "W-what?"

"You tell me, Autobot. Did **you** decide to be **disposable**?" Fulcrum spat, lowering his helm until only low glints of yellow and contempt were visible. Rewind actually staggered back a step, shaking his head. Denial had turned to outright anger burning in those yellow optics, because it was terribly clear the little Autobot wasn't here for him. Nobody saw him for _him_ it seemed. He was who he'd been, the crime he'd committed, the frame forced on him, or just his fragging faction. "Did you have to fight for your right to live? Were you told you were the lowest of the low and should die after serving your purpose? You weren't even a person. You were a number. A statistic, and losing one of your frametype used to hardly change the stats."

A bitter laugh filled the brig cell. "Because your altmode is all you are, right? Once your altmode's used up, you're useless. Did you make the decision to be used like that? Were you even given a **choice**?"

"**That's** what it feels like." Fulcrum turned away, putting his back to the past. "You say I don't remember who I was, but I know enough about Cybertronian history to know I'm probably not missing much. You remember everything, I don't remember anything, and I'm okay with that. War's flipped everything around, but nothing's changed." He sat down on the berth and looked up through the bars at Rewind. "You've just become the indispensable resource, and I'm the disposable class, now. K-Class is even more marginalized than your frametype ever was."

He laid back and sighed. "I wonder who's gonna campaign for **my** rights?"

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Smokescreen - "Financial responsibility"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"If that's all today..?" Optimus Prime looked around the table.

Only to wince, because Prowl had his doors in tight. That wasn't all today, it seemed. His executive officer had his helm bent and lips pressed tight.

The rest of the officers followed Prime's gaze. "What's the deal-EO?" Blaster asked cautiously from the end of the table. He could always be counted on to break the silence.

Prowl looked up, and the table flinched as one. Narrow, white-blue optics were not a good sign. "Smokescreen has asked Carly and Spike to set up a charity auction at their university for him."

It took a long minute for that to process. Spike had only recently transferred to Carly's school, meaning that not everybody was up to speed on what university he was currently at. That whole war thing took a bit more precedence than knowing exactly where their friend went during the week. Not that they weren't interested in his life, but the Autobots lived on a longer time-scale than humans. Six weeks of absence from the _Ark_ was barely noticeable unless they reminded themselves it was unusual. It seemed much longer for the shorter-lived species.

Then there was the strange matter of a charity auction. The officers' optics went blank as the whole table had to tap into Teletraan-1 to research the idea. People donating items to be auctioned off, and the proceeds given to a charity? It was an odd concept. Not a bad one - Jazz immediately added 'Bake Sale' and 'Car Wash' to their to-do list for Earth public relations - but an odd one. Perhaps because it'd been so long since there had been organized charities on Cybertron.

Especially ones that focused on an individual. That was a strange idea in and of itself, and puzzled looks broke out across the table as they digested the thought of Smokescreen starting one for his own benefit. Was that…normal? To have a sole beneficiary for a charity auction? Or was he starting it on the Autobots' behalf? Was he running a charity to donate the money to a cause he championed?

"Smokescreen is not a charity," Red Alert said as he squinted one optic. "I would know if he were categorized as an entire organization instead of one mech."

"I think that means he wants the money raised for himself, not that he's representing an organization," Ratchet said, optics still vacant. "Here, I've found the flyer Carly made." Teletraan-1 obediently pulled up the files for the others when the medic pinged it to. She had used one of Teletraan-1's pre-made formats on her computer, so the _Ark_'s computer now had copies of her work.

"This wasn't cleared by me." Red Alert's high-performance and high-strung engine snarled as he read. "This is not an Autobot function."

"No, but he got us pretty good, there," Jazz put in, reading along and following his train of thought. "That's Smokies' phrasing, alright. Nice." His tone clearly conveyed the opposite. This was _not_ nice. This was manipulative, underhanded, and Smokescreen all over. "He's pulling all our P.R. strings on this one. It's a grassroot campaign, so we can't say scrap to stop it because it's not official." Red Alert made a disgruntled noise, obviously still caught on the formatting that _implied_ it was official, and Jazz reached out to clap a hand on his arm. "Because it's being promoted by his friends. He went through Carly and Spike instead of through the university itself. We can't say anything against it for the same reason; we'd have his friends on the defensive, if only because if we pull the wool away from their eyes, they're gonna lash out to cover their own embarrassment. And the way he's phrased it..."

Blaster barked a laugh that was only amused at their expense. "Mech, he be good. I'm tapping him for political weasel-wording in the future."

The smaller black-and-white Autobot revved his engine and sat back, frowning at his HUD. Smokescreen was good, no doubt about it, but Jazz didn't have to like it. "There's just enough twist on the explanation that we're going to be seen as attacking him if we say anything. He's got a sudden need for cash, sure, but he's piled on the pathetic making it seem like this has been sprung on him and he's not to blame for the cause. Yeah, no. He's had gambling debt deadlines piling up for six months now. He knew they were coming, but the way this is laid out, it's goin' for the human heart. _'Boo hoo, I need money 'cause this is so sudden and I've got so many expenses and I can't work for money because of this waaaaaar.'_" Jazz let his voice trail off in a pathetic whine. He shook his head. "Regardless of the fact that he does regular work for the U.S. government and only gives up a portion of what he makes to us."

"We only get a portion?" Prowl asked quietly. He kept his optics down and voice level as he spoke. He'd brought up Smokescreen as a problem in these meetings so often that he occasionally felt the irrational fear that he was picking on the mech. It wasn't logical, but there was a discrepancy between what he knew as fact and what others acted like regardless of those facts. When a mech was so enthusiastically liked by the ranks but got on his nerves all the time, it left Prowl doubting the validity of his conclusions sometimes.

Jazz gave him a reassuring flash of blue visor. "50% if we're lucky, but I've never called him out on it. He's been in counseling about his gambling addiction, and that's been my only requirement."

"I see."

Optimus Prime leaned forward, folding his hands together and resting his chin on them. "So the purpose of this charity auction?"

Prowl sighed air slowly out his vents and pinched one tip of his chevron in exasperation. "Smokescreen is raising money to pay off his debt."

"And the reason he can't pay this debt off himself?"

The air came out in a rush, this time. "Smokescreen has money management problems."

"Gambling?"

"Not always," Ratchet put in, leaning forward himself to put in his two shanix worth. "He's addicted, don't be mistaken, but he's surprisingly cooperative in seeking aid in controlling that. However, I think the consequence of not gambling as much in the last year - maybe closer to six months or so - is that he's had disposable income." He spread his hands and glanced up as if asking for help on high. "So he disposed of it."

"He commissioned Sunstreaker just last week," Red Alert said, frowning at the files he was pulling up. He had access to all of the Autobots' records, even their financial ones. "Small light-sculpture to give Mirage, I believe. It wasn't cheap. How can he justify asking for donations of money when he is spending it on frivolities?"

"Can't say if he genuinely believes it or not, but he doesn't see commissioning art as a luxury. Or buying that wax at the import shop in downtown Portland this week. He only kept some of it and gave the rest to Bumblebee and Windcharger. He files that under a gift for morale's sake," Jazz said, tapping his fingers on the table. "We can't say slag-all about it, or it'll seem like we're going after Sunstreaker for taking the commission or the Minibots for taking the gifts, and they don't deserve that."

Red Alert's frown deepened the further back in the records he looked. "There's a game purchase listed here. He and Sideswipe put in a joint order for some specialty shooting video games."

"I can already hear the excuses," Ironhide drawled. "Gotta have entertainment, right? Those punks are addicted to their blasted games."

"How dast we officers try to deprive them of their hobbies? Gasp," Jazz said, deadpan. "There shall be fainting."

The Security Director gave him a quirked corner of his lip, amused but not. "I get it. Life is miserable, so seize a windfall when you have it without care for the future, for the future shall be miserable as well. Make your own joy."

"That was…surprisingly poetic," Ratchet said, turning to give him an odd look.

"There's a Hallmark store next door to Sparkplug's Garage in New York," Red Alert said flatly. "I spent three days running detection wires through the card stands and securing the premises. I read a lot of trite things while working. Humans have some unrealistic but nicely worded cards for any occasion." He smiled suddenly. "Happy belated birthday, by the way. There's a card on your desk from Inferno and I. I figured out all of our frame-dates as part of converting our files to local times."

Everyone stared at him for a moment. Ratchet reset his optics.

Red Alert looked back to his records. "Then there's the gambling, of course."

Like every meeting on Earth, topical whiplash was always a hazard. Jazz dragged his attention back to the issue at hand. "Ah. Yeah. Less than it was, but still there. I know, I know." He threw up his hands helplessly. "He'll stick to the addiction argument if I bring it up with him, too. _'I've got to have an allowance for that! I __**need**__ it!'_"

"It sounds like he'll argue that if anything is said about any of his spending," the Prime concluded. "Everything he's spent can be twisted about to be presented to the sympathetic human public as a 'woe is me' expense. Why has it gotten this far?" His optics narrowed in a frown. "Surely someone has spoken to him about this before?"

"Oh, we have," Ratchet said before Prowl could. "Look, he's relatively young. Most of this crew is." Meaning that they hadn't had much of an opportunity for an actual life before the war began, not that they were considered young in vorns anymore. "Smokescreen wasn't on his own for long before joining the Autobots. As such, he's always had external support to bail him out of the holes he digs himself."

Optimus looked at him sidelong, not quite following.

The medic rattled his plating irritably. "Before the war, what happened if you didn't have enough money to make rent?"

"You got evicted," Prowl supplied dryly, still not looking up.

"So what did you do?"

The executive officer shifted to sit straight, shrugging one shoulder. "You stopped spending money on frivolities."

"Stopped going out to the clubs every night," Jazz put in.

"Took more hours at work," Red Alert said, then smirked at himself. "Well, that wasn't always an option, considering how much I already worked."

"My job didn't have available extra hours," Ironhide grumbled at him. "If slag went down, I had to lay off the high grade and stick to the cheapest swill I could find. Bargain shopping for energon." He smiled a little. "Brings back memories."

"Don't it just." Blaster grinned back at the old weapons specialist. "Mech, I had eight Cassettes to support. When I took in the last two, we had medical appointments coming out our audios, and we went bargain-bin scrounging for **everything** to meet the cost. There were times I thought we'd have to sell my broadcast equipment." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Had to, a couple times. Sucked like a black hole, but frag. It's whatcha did. You saved up the shanix 'cause otherwise you didn't have it when you needed it."

"Right," Ratchet said, bringing them back to the present by pointing a finger on the table, "but not once we brought all these younglings into the ranks. They never had to face those consequences. Couldn't make your credit limit? Autobots bailed you out. Spent all your petty cash on high grade and circuit speeders? No backlash. Sure, there's been short-term punishment, but not enough to grind in that money is real and has to be managed. There's always been someone to save their afts. These mechs never learned that they have to look after themselves."

"I think Smokescreen feels he's entitled to others contributing because of that," Prowl agreed softly, raising his optics at last. "He's never learned to control his spending, so when he has no money left, he feels that he's owed more."

Ratchet nodded. "We talk to him about what's going on, but he takes it as an attack on him personally instead of a warning that real life is eventually going to kick his skidplate up between his audios."

"Someday, some of the humans are going to point out how they're feeding his irresponsible habits," Prowl's doors eased down slowly, "and eventually, there will be more people listening than defending him. He'll either start huffing about how humans are horrible, or he'll finally learn. But after so long with the Autobots pandering to him, why would he learn from this species wising up?"

"Because what can we do, mechs?" Blaster put his palms up. "If the charity auction don't work, he'll just come to us. And I dunno 'bout ya'll, but I can't help but think it'd look bad if we let one of our own go into bankruptcy and face a human court 'bout his debts."

"Hey, it'd be one way to make him face up to the slag he's trying to get away with." Jazz cocked his head but smiled wanly when everyone gave him resigned looks. "Yeah, yeah. I know. Wishful thinking."

"We can take on his debt," the Prime decided, "if it comes to that. With the condition that all of his future income goes to the Autobot accounts, and he may not spend on credit. All purchases must first be approved by - "

"Can't do that," Prowl and Red Alert said at the same time.

"I put that stipulation into effect on Sideswipe upon awakening on Earth." Prowl scowled at the tabletop, but it was frustration at the red frontliner instead of irritation with the table itself. "Sideswipe immediately began making comments to Spike and Sparkplug about how the Autobots stand for personal freedom. Interpretation through the local standpoint equates 'personal freedom' with their own concept of individual rights. By the time I caught on to what he was doing, they'd already conceived a somewhat warped mindset about what the Autobot Cause is."

That could have been a public relations nightmare. "We're military, but that would hold little substance with the way Sideswipe angled to present us," Red Alert muttered tiredly. This was an old, sore topic with him. "The idea of imposing on a mech's life to control his spending of personal accounts, despite the fact that allowing a personal account is an exception to our standard practices, is apparently looked down upon in the United States. Their military is separate from civilian life due to, ah, circumstances," as in, because Earth wasn't embroiled in a world-wide war that eliminated the classification of 'civilian', "but their soldiers still have many of the rights of civilians. The USA regards them as inherent. Humans in this country will not accept our social structure as it is. Removing the money from Sideswipe's - or Smokescreen's - accounts and **returning** it to our main account will be seen as stealing it from them, and we will be accused of depriving them of an innate right to financial independence."

Silence temporarily took over the room as the officers did their own research to check on how that worked. Prowl looked vaguely depressed. Red Alert just seemed fed-up with trying to fight it. Sideswipe had outmaneuvered both of them on this issue.

"So what can be done?" the Prime asked after he'd looked up the United State's Constitution and several different state constitutions to fact-check.

Prowl's wings cinched in tight again. "Nothing."

"I'll talk to him again," Ratchet said grimly, "but I doubt it'll help. He'll react like I'm attacking him personally, and if he's already got Carly on his side, I'll be hearing about it from her as well."

"And lo, your reputation for being a bitter grouch will continue to grow," Jazz said, waggling his fingers as if performing magic. "Ratchet picks on poor widdle Autobots who are just soooo unfortunate because, oh my golly gee, they need help and Ratchet's not helping!"

"If it were my job to help every irresponsible idiot who couldn't manage money, I'd have been broke before the war."

"You're not a nice mech." Jazz pouted. "You don't give everything to mechs in need."

Ratchet harrumphed. "Not when they don't help themselves." He sighed and shoved himself away from the table. "If that's it, I'll just be going."

Optimus Prime looked around the table. Prowl's doors were brought in as tight as his lips were clamped together. Jazz wore an exasperated expression. Blaster looked as frustrated as Ironhide, and Red Alert looked like he just wanted to storm out.

"If that's all today..?"

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Other, other universes: Misfire/Fulcrum - making out_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

He was eager, Fulcrum would give him that.

"Stop, stop!" The K-Class Decepticon pushed Misfire back and sighed at the injured look he got in return. "Look…" How to phrase this? He knew how to write a user manual, but this was outside his comfort zone.

"What'd I do?" Misfire's lips made a wonky shape as he bit the inside of his cheek anxiously. "I was trying to get the input receiver where the vocalizer cues your tongue to move for a diphthong, you know, right when you have to move your mouth to change the sound? It's sensitive, at least mine is," he revised that statement hastily, "and I try to get at it. Didn't I find it? I could've sworn that I did!"

He looked really worried about it, and Fulcrum waved his hands to head off that, uh, rather odd concern. "No, no - wait." He blinked, suddenly thinking about what had just been said at him. "How do you even know anything about diphthongs and how our tongues..? You know what, never mind." That train of thought got chopped off, because otherwise Misfire would sprint off on another verbal sidetrack, and he'd never get a word in. "No, look, it's not about that. Although that makes more sense about what you were trying to do, but no."

The K-Con sighed and pulled his hand down his face. Since he was currently located in Misfire's lap, that bumped his elbow against the flyer's chest and got another injured look. "Sorry. Okay, look, I've got no other way to put this, Misfire. You asked me to give you an objective opinion on your technique, right?"

For once, Misfire seemed afraid to speak. He'd asked Fulcrum to play judge on his kissing abilities because Crankcase had pulled out an expression of revulsion extreme even for, well, Crankcase's normal level of disgust with the universe. "…yeah?"

Fulcrum looked him straight in the optics. "You kiss like Grimlock eats: wet, sloppy, and trying to stuff way too much tongue into too small an area."

Purple wings drooped pitifully, almost hanging down from their hinges as Misfire's shoulders dropped into a slouch. It was actually rather sad to watch. The normally upbeat jet went from wary to utterly depressed in two seconds flat. "Oh. That's…oh." That would explain Crankcase's expression, yes.

The level delivery didn't take any sting out of the words. Fulcrum had sounded like he was giving someone under his command a performance evaluation: here were the facts, the facts were that failure ran rampant, now deal with said failure. Misfire blinked repeatedly and worked his mouth as if trying to find words to reply with. For once, he utterly failed.

"You asked me to assess you!" Fulcrum protested, panicking a bit at how the flyer completely deflated. "That's what I think, which is what you **asked** for! What, did you want me to lie and say you're a fantastic kisser? Because you're not. You're kind of awful." Misfire's mouth shaped a strange 'o' as he stared at him. "Frag, stop that. Stop looking at me like that. I'm not even interested in you!" Stricken red optics kept looking at him, and the K-Con shook his head violently. "Not like that! I didn't mean that I'm not interested in you **just** because you kiss so badly." Misfire's face fell further. He seemed kind of horrified by now, really. Both of Fulcrum's hands went up and gestured vaguely, trying to convey exactly what he meant and failing miserably. "I'm not interested in you at all! I'm sure you've got very nice qualities to make up for your terrible kissing deficiency, but I don't want to 'face you in the least and - oh, come **on**. You have to have something to cover the lack!"

Misfire looked downright depressed by now, optic frames at their widest and mouth falling open yet further as he stared. When Fulcrum fell to sputtering and trying to illustrate how unfraggable he found the flyer with hand puppets, Misfire's vents wheezed sadly. It took him a bit, but he gathered some coherency out of the stunned dismay.

"Thanks for your help," he said helplessly. "That's, um. Yeah. I'll work on that."

Fulcrum put his hand back over his face and made a frustrated noise. None of that had come out how he intended at all. Now he knew what Misfire felt like on a regular day. "Well, now that I've tripped over my own tongue and flattened your ego," he huffed wryly, "I'll give helping you a try."

The fear returned, and Misfire would have leaned away if Fulcrum's other arm wasn't wrapped around the back of his neck. "No, really, that's okay!" He'd just never attempt to snog with Crankcase again. Or anyone else. Ever.

"No, it's not," the technician decided. "How did you get this far without learning a proper kiss? Did everyone in your old unit have face masks, or is it physically impossible for you to shut up long enough to kiss someone correctly?" It was, sadly enough, a legitimate question. Misfire shrugged uncomfortably. "Anyway, first off: it's not you, it's me." He looked up, yellow optics level and serious. "You know that. I'm sure you're a highly attractive example of a nonstop babbling war machine to somebody out there, but not me. I'm low-charge. It's - this is nice. I like the preliminaries," he wriggled, digging his skidplate into Misfire's legs and reminding the purple flyer that he currently had his arms wrapped around Fulcrum's waist, "but nothing you do is going to charge me up. It's not a reflection on your skill." Or lack thereof, but he didn't say that. Out loud, anyway. From the flinch, Misfire had picked up on the unspoken words loud and clear for once. "It's just how I am. It's why you asked me to do this, remember?"

Right. He had asked for this. For the relentless crushing of his pride into a whimpering whisp hiding under his inability to hit anything he aimed at. Misfire swallowed hard and offered a sickly grin. "Yeah. Alright. I did." Because he was an idiot, apparently, but as Krok would say, that was nothing new. It'd also never stopped him from continuing a stupid idea once he got started. "So, uh…now what?" He really wasn't looking forward to a clinical dissection of his Grimlock-esque kissing ability.

The tan-and-orange K-Con in his lap blew out air irritably. "So, now second: we try it again. C'mere." He slid his hand up behind Misfire's helm and immediately had to put his other one between their faces when the flyer all but lunged toward him, wings hiked up eagerly. "No!"

It took more to keep Misfire down than merely jumping up and down on his sexual prowess. Kissing classes sounded _awesome_! Sign him up for some of that! They should be mandatory when a mech joined the Decepticons!

His wings meekly drooped again, however, when Fulcrum kept his hand over that over-enthusiastic mouth. "Nnmph?"

"No," the slender Decepticon ordered sternly. "You stay still this time. Respond, but don't initiate. Got it?"

One red optic twitched in confusion, but if it involved Fulcrum kissing him? Misfire was all for that, however it came about. The Scavengers had gotten it through their collective incomprehension eventually that different frames meant different levels of charge. That hadn't stopped them from interfacing the bolts of each other and discreetly bickering over who got to cuddle the K-Con afterward. Fulcrum was relatively small and cuddly in an unarmed way, and knowing he could kill them with his _brain module_ was kind of exciting. There were lots of heavily armed mechs in the Decepticons, but not quite so many smart ones. At least, smart ones who good-naturedly hung out with the rest of the grunts and tolerated spontaneous hugging.

Misfire wasn't the only Scavenger developing a weirdly chaste crush on his unit-mate. And he knew it wasn't going to go anywhere, but like Fulcrum had said: the preliminaries were nice. And frag. They were all expropriation specialists. They were experts at using what they got, knowing it was all they were going to get.

He nodded, smiling under the hand.

"Okay." That hand slid slowly off Misfire's mouth, but it didn't leave the jet's face. Fulcrum ran his thumb over Misfire's lower lip while his hand cupped the mech's jaw and gently tipped the confused Decepticon's face down at a better angle. "Okay, let's try this again," he muttered as he leaned in. "Pay attention."

Brassy, almost orange lips brushed against silver, a butterfly hint of pressure that lifted and came down again on Misfire's bottom lip. A whispering touch lit the sensors waiting under the thin plating to tingling anticipation, but the touch merely pressed down a second longer before flitting away to give a lingering caress to the neglected upper lip. Fulcrum parted his lips and breathed a hot ex-vent over silver metal, letting the bare hint of moisture and heat tease as the caress swept from one side to the other, where he kissed the corner of Misfire's mouth. He returned to that abandoned lower lip, smiling against the pouty frown of concentration he'd provoked. Misfire had unconsciously puckered his lips slightly, trying to figure out how to respond, and that gave Fulcrum that whole plump curve to play with.

He lipped at the outside of that pout, the front of his teeth clicking off it, and Misfire's lips parted in surprise. Fulcrum nuzzled his face closer, nose nudging Misfire's cheek as he angled his mouth to suck that lower lip in to trace with the very tip of his tongue. There were sensors there that'd just been waiting for his attention, and who was he to disappoint? Misfire's vents hitched in an odd way, and Fulcrum used the hand still on his jaw to pull him forward and down enough to cover that silver mouth with his own.

For a second, their lips fit perfectly together, mouths parted just enough that they tasted the breath shared between them. Then Fulcrum _pushed_, lips crushed to the flyer's to steal that air like he'd devour Misfire from the inside out, and the flyer's jolted in his seat with a breathless squeak of shock.

When the K-Con sat back, Misfire stayed frozen, optics seeing nothing and mouth hanging open a little. "More like that, less like Grimlock," Fulcrum said, nodding firmly.

"I, uh. You. What."

"Are you okay?"

"I think I need to practice," the flyer said hoarsely. If Crankcase pulled a grimace after a kiss like _that_, the mech had a gearbox for interface hardware. "A lot."

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_What didn't happen - "More sad Scavengers"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"It's really weird, that's all I'm saying." Misfire pulled a length of tubing through his hand and frowned at the kinks. "I have to have a specialized set of tubes for siphoning energon, and I can't replace them with tubes taken out of somebody's corpse. Which is bogus, you know, because half the tubes in our bodies are for carrying fuel anyway, so I don't get why siphoning means I need different tubes!" He shook his head and elbowed Flywheels, who was doing his best to ignore him. "Why do I need different tubes? All I'm doing is sucking energon from corpse A to flask B, so what's with needing a special tube size? Somebody out there is profiting off selling siphoning kits that have to be replaced by specialized equipment that really isn't needed."

Flywheels leaned his head away and just sort of looked at him for a moment. He didn't bother trying to answer, because Misfire was so high answers just kind of whiffed by underneath him. Total misses. They didn't even register. Before the first surge of the circuit speeders had finally worn off, Krok had tied a cable to his landing gear and let him buzz around in little captive circles overhead, because frag if the mech was getting any work done. The officer had been quite a sight to see, walking along as patient and resigned as ever while holding the end of the cable. The jet had zipped around talking so fast it'd all come out mashed together into a long, high-pitched, "Wheeeeeee!"

This manic yapping on inane topics was a step back toward normal, except it was still being done in fast forward. Misfire wasn't slowing down to let anyone get a word in edgewise. Flywheels shook his head and went back to watching Spinister work.

Sure enough, the jet kept chattering. "Not that it matters, because I can fix this set right now if I can find some glue, but Spinister says he has some. I don't need to go looking, how handy is that? I just have to wait for him to finish up with - are you finished yet?" he called toward their surgeon.

Spinister had his hands up to the wrists in the corpse's chest at the moment. A nice, solid corpse; all the Scavengers ever wanted from this world. Then again, this world kind of sucked. All they wanted out of Clemency was enough energon to fuel the W.A.P. and get away from the planet. So yeah, they wanted solid corpses that were mostly intact.

This corpse right here? Exactly what they wanted. It was a tan-and-orange Decepticon who was a bit bashed about but otherwise undamaged. Judging by the crater he was lying in, he'd fallen to his death. That was too bad, but it got them a mostly-intact corpse, so hurray for death by gravity.

Unnamed dead Decepticon number four thousand and then some was a good find. Krok had immediately called everyone over to strip the body down, but Spinister had put a stop to that by claiming he had to disarm something in the body's chest. Misfire hadn't been able to pay attention long enough to hear what the surgeon had to do. But even he hadn't tried to dive straight to work.

Hey, one thing a mech learned about rummaging about on a battlefield? Ordnance never died. Mechs did, but their weaponry didn't. The Scavengers stood back and let Spinister do his thing, because the magic word in expropriation was 'disarm.' It was synonymous with 'live to see another day.' Misfire liked these words. He even told Flywheels so and got an agreeable monosyllable in return. Yes, survival was a good thing. They liked that.

They didn't like it so much when Spinister stiffened and grunted. That was the kind of grunt that came right before the surgeon hauled off and punched someone in the face. Misfire would know; he'd heard it often enough.

"Spinister?" Krok asked quickly.

"Krok. You guys." Spinister's voice had gone from dull and slightly mystified by the world to curt and full of authority. Even Crankcase listened. That was the voice of a medical authority during an emergency, and smart Decepticons knew to follow it when they heard it. "Start running. Misfire, Flywheels - grab 'em and go. **Now.**"

Krok, dumbaft overly concerned commander he was, actually took a step closer. "What is it?"

And their big, stupid, hardcore warrior lug of a medic glanced back with a pained look to his optics. "K-Class. Thought I could disarm him, Krok, but I tripped him instead. I've got the wires between my fingers, but I can't - " Panic lit those optics fear-bright. "It's slipping! Get out of here!"

Flywheels snatched Crankcase up by the shoulders and took off, going for height instead of distance.

Misfire grabbed for Krok, but the officer dug his heels in and hesitated. "Spinister, what about..?"

"**Go!**"

The hyperactive jet hauled their officer's arm as hard as he could, slamming the smaller Decepticon onto his back with a quick half-twist that left Krok's hands on the tops of his wings when he transformed, but they were still close enough to hear the ominous click of detonation.

And then they didn't hear anything at all.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_ What didn't happen - "Someone asked for more sad Scavengers?"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"Wait. Guys? Guys, I can explain…"

Shocked staring turned into a command decision. Krok had lost one unit, and like the Pit was he going to lose a second one. His helm whipped around to address the comm-cube. "Tarn!"

"No!"

The leader of the Decepticon Justice Division seemed amused by the sudden shouting match on Krok's end. "Not so dead, I assume?" Fulcrum's attempted escape and Crankcase's flying tackle were out of sight, but the K-Con's yelling could be clearly heard. The two mechs tumbled down the short slope, and then the rest of the Scavengers piled on top.

Krok's throat tubing worked nervously as he quickly revised _everything_. Crankcase and Flywheels had Fulcrum pinned down, wrists jerked up between his altmode casing while Spinister tied them there. They had the traitor, however much Krok dearly wished they didn't. Tarn had originally offered them a deal where they lived if they turned Fulcrum over without a fuss. Maybe the deal still stood. It was either hope it was possible or try to take a stand against the D.J.D. now that they already knew something was wrong.

He had to take the chance for the sake of his remaining mechs. "Ah, due to a misunderstanding, I'm afraid we may have been operating under, er, false pretenses."

"In other words, you lied to me and are now covering your aft." Tarn did have a way with words, didn't he?

Krok winced. "Ye - not precisely, no. But, yes, Fulcrum is still alive. He's - well, he's here with us. You see, ah, sir," he tacked the title of respect on, because dear Primus did they need to butter the leader of the D.J.D. up right now, "we were under the assumption that you were after Grimlock."

"They're la~anding," Misfire sing-songed nervously as he peered over the ridge. Everyone could hear the ship touching down.

Fulcrum struggled harder, then slumped like a pathetic sack of spare parts in Spinister's steel grip. His fans were working so hard they rattled audibly from where Krok stood. "Please no, please, I didn't do anything, I swear I didn't, please…"

"Grimlock?" Tarn's optics narrowed behind his mask. "Grimlock is there?"

Interest! Interest was a good sign of potential survival! "Yes. He's in the statis pod," Krok said as he stood up to stand cautiously beside Misfire. That made big targets of them both on the ridgeline, but Krok sincerely hoped it wouldn't come to that. The purple flyer gave the comm.-cube a wide, nervous smile and pointed helpfully. Krok turned it so Tarn could see over the clear area between the Worldsweeper and the _Peaceful Tyranny_. "We dragged it out there because, uh, we thought he was who you were after. We didn't know - "

"I see," Tarn interrupted. In the distance, a group of mechs any sane Decepticon and quite a few insane ones feared disembarked from the ship. They stood and looked back toward the outcropping Krok's unit hid behind. "I will take this incident as the lesson it is. Including the names of those we hunt is important."

"Would have avoided a lot of this slag," Crankcase muttered, reversing his tune about fighting for the true Decepticons now that the D.J.D. was headed toward them.

Krok looked at him, then away. He had no illusions about his new crew: they were maniacs, morons, and bullies. They were backstabbing dregs of the faction, and they'd turn on each other just as easily as he'd shot the Autobot they'd burnt for a fire last night. That didn't mean he would do his best to keep them alive, even if it came at the expense of one of them. He avoided looking in the direction of the K-Con being frog-marched up the incline. The end justified the means, in bleak survivalist terms. None of them were expropriation specialists because they had a choice, after all.

"Primus, please! I'm begging you guys, please, I'm begging you. I'll do anything you want, I swear, just don't, please Primus - mmph!"

Flywheels had slapped his hand over Fulcrum's mouth. "Primus already answered my prayer today," the NeoPrimalist said, clenching his free hand. "Don't want Him getting confused, okay? Good."

Well, if there was ever a time to find religion, now was it. Krok's finger tightened on the injection trigger as Tarn transformed to look down at the statis pod. This was the moment. This was the second. He could either hit the trigger, and they'd fight - or he trusted in a deal that might have passed its expiration date.

The moment passed. Tarn patted the pod approvingly, and Krok's hand relaxed. The figure below and the face in the comm.-cube he still held looked at him. "Bring the traitor down here, Decepticons, and as a reward for your loyalty, you may witness his execution. As a reward for bringing us the Autobot," Tarn patted the statis pod again, "we may just give your little group a lift to the nearest outpost."

Krok carefully set the trigger down altogether and beckoned to his motley group. "Sir, that would be **very** appreciated."

Fulcrum shrieked in despair, wailing for mercy that the D.J.D. didn't have. Krok gave him an apologetic look. Flywheels and Misfire uneasily kept their helms turned away. Spinister lifted their necessary sacrifice up, and the Scavengers went down to collect their reward.

So, in the end, the Scavengers made it. There was just a slightly different roster for the unit.

Flywheels left Clemency. Fulcrum stayed behind.

What was left of him, anyway.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Commission fic for GoddamnitRiot - "Swerve/Tailgate - something short, sweet, and happy"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Tailgate was being cute again.

To be fair, he probably couldn't turn that off, just like Swerve couldn't turn off his swag. Swerve had swag coming out his doors! So much swag he couldn't contain it! Swag to make Whirl envious of his swagdom!

He seemed to have mislaid some of it, today. Most of it. The majority of it.

Swerve held onto Tailgate's thighs and grasped after the retreating tendrils of anything resembling swag. Courage, bravery, steel backstruts and iron innards, _anything_ besides this odd shy bluster filling him at the moment. Because he was _holding Tailgate's thighs_ like anything about lush white curves with that pert blue aft perched on top could be chaste. Why, oh why was he so very close but unable to bridge the distance? A slip of the hand! A suggestive squeeze, or maybe a nice long sweep of his fingers up glossy white curves! That'd be _all_ it'd take. So simple even Brainstorm couldn't fudge it!

That might be pushing it. Brainstorm could overcomplicate pretty much anything. Although Swerve sort of wished the mech were here just so he'd have a reason to seize the simplest solution possible. As it was, he was about ready to bang his head on the bartop in frustration. Why couldn't he just slide his hand on up and plink a wheel in suave invitation? Argh.

Instead of flirting, he kept talking. That was his default mode for dealing with awkward silence, and Tailgate, for all his cuteness, had walked in soaked to the visor with quiet sadness. No big surprise there; half the ship must have heard Cyclonus bellowing angrily about the spontaneous hug the little Minibot had sprung on him. Filling the silence seemed like a better idea that letting Tailgate brood and maybe eventually notice how the hands on his thighs were assessing them for potential spots to get a good grip on later. Subtly! But definitely. And Swerve was suffering from an overabundance of choices, too. So many grabbable spots, so little courage to seize them.

_'Missing: swag. If found, please return to Swerve at the bar.'_ Then get the frag out of there before he used it to immediately jump Tailgate.

" - wanna paint the ceiling to look like Earth's sky. Ever seen it? I haven't, but Sunstreaker says he can do it if I can find the paint, and Drift says it's really neat and Rodimus liked it, and you know, staying on the good side of the captain is always a good thing. Besides, Ultra Magnus was on Earth for a while, wasn't he? I don't know if he liked it, but I've never heard him say anything bad about the place!" Then again, Swerve had never asked. But not asking things like permission and preferences made it easier to plead ignorance after he was caught, which is how he'd escaped Ultra Magnus brigging him previously, and being ignorant meant he could ask forgiveness after things had already happened. Or rather, it meant he could beg and whine and pester until he got his way and the mech forgave him just to make him shut up. It was an effective strategy, really.

That, and offering free drinks. Those two methods had done well by Swerve so far. He shouldn't have strayed from them. It was when he only posted a notice and turned off the engex taps that it got rubbed in his face that nobody would come into the bar to help him or just hang out with him. He'd thought that maybe Skids or even Whirl, but nope. It'd just been him, smiling futilely at the door every time somebody walked by outside in the hallway.

The bar renovation party had been a party of one until Tailgate slouched through the door. Swerve was always happy to see his friend, but he'd practically vaulted the bartop to greet the guy today. Party of two made a real party instead of a depressed pity-party! Tailgate's mood wasn't helping, but honestly, what kind of friend would Swerve be if he didn't try to make his pal feel better?

"Seems like blue and white should lighten up the bar a lot, too. I mean, I like the dark look for intimacy, but I don't want a doom and gloom bar. We get enough of that when Cyclonus walks in the door." Tailgate stiffened in his hands, and Swerve's wide smile ticked a tad wider as he registered his verbal blunder - as usual - too late. Right, this was Tailgate, one-way best buddy of Cyclonus, the _Lost Light_'s uncrowned king of personal space issues. "Uh, well, it'll be like adding you when he's here! Low lighting and bright cheer at once! Cyclonus on the bottom, and you spread out over the bar!"

...oh, Primus, had he actually said that out loud?

A sound honked from above him, like a snort and a giggle had collided. Swerve grinned against Tailgate's thigh. Okay, so maybe that hadn't been as bad a trip-up as he'd thought. Although now he couldn't shake the mental image. He did like blue, especially the shade right in front of his visor, and he wondered if he could get Sunstreaker to use Tailgate blue in the sky. Tailgate spread out over his bar was a _nice_ thing to imagine happening every day. Ooo, especially happening during working hours.

Mmm, yeah. That. It wouldn't take much. Just turn and walk a few steps toward the nearest table, bend forward enough for his friend to get the hint, and then catch him with hands on his midriff and the small of his back. Yeah. Right…right on the small of his back. Right where Swerve's right hand had just strayed to, sliding up from one thigh in the name of balance. Tailgate didn't object. The white-and-blue mech leaned slightly against the steadying hand, trusting Swerve to keep him in place, and the smile faltered as Swerve licked his lips. There were tasty things parading across his mind's optics, mostly involving keeping his hand right where it was while he found out just how far Tailgate could arch back over it.

Cyclonus didn't know what the frag he was doing, pushing the Minibot away. Swerve would shut up for a hug from Tailgate, much less anything more. The curves were tempting enough, but the aura of being untouched by the war made Swerve want to put his hands all over him. All. Over. Him.

"Okay, I'm done with this one." The old-timer in question dropped the last of the screws he'd been teasing out of their holes up near the ceiling. He tapped the top of Swerve's helm cowl, and the bartender obediently heaved him up. Both hands clamped securely over white curves? Yes sir, he could do that, sir. "I can walk, you know."

Yeah, like Swerve was going to let any opportunity to handle Tailgate's thighs walk away? "It's quicker for me to carry you," he cheerfully protested as that nicely shaped aft sat on his shoulder-tire. He used his feet and reluctantly freed one hand to push the stool-on-chair tower toward the next set of panels he wanted to take out. He normally wasn't one for manual labor, but this sort of felt more like foreplay the longer it went on. "You wanna waste time climbing up and down this thing? Ultra Rule-ness is already gonna pitch a fit if he catches us doing this, and you're going to fall if you have to keep scrambling up on it."

Swerve had cleared taking down the wall partition between the bar and backroom with Rodimus, but the problem with only two Minibots doing renovations was that they were really short. Swerve had come up with using a stool on top of a chair in lieu of a ladder to reach the screws. Which required holding onto Tailgate's thighs to make sure he didn't fall while balanced on top of the rickety structure. Sure, Swerve could have gone looking for a ladder, but yeah. No. He wasn't inclined to even suggest it.

His shoulder tire rocked back and forth as Tailgate kicked his heels idly. The axle gave tiny squeaks as it was worked against the parking brake, bouncing off the brake pads in a, uh, supremely distracting manner. Those weren't sensitive while in his altmode, but the sensor network redirected when he was in rootmode. Tires weren't modes of transportation in rootmode; they were meant to function as just another part of his body. A particularly bouncy part, as Tailgate was finding out. The smaller Minibot's aft bobbed up and down in time with the kicking, and Swerve could feel every last bit of pressure being put on that tire!

Swerve swallowed and took his time nudging the chair into place. On the one hand: perfectly innocent. Tailgate was just fidgeting. On the other: _bounce bounce_ dear Primus _bounce_. Riding his tire like that was less adorable than the heel-kicking. Cute transmuted into something more risque. Broad hands clamped over the white thighs as if to keep the smaller mech from falling, but Swerve was some swag away from less than pure intentions. Did Tailgate have any idea what he was doing?

"You busy tonight?" Swerve blurted, because control over his own mouth was even more difficult than controlling his libido. Swag was not required for rampant exercise of _that_ bodily function.

"I thought I'd help you for a while, if that's alright?" The rocking continued, settling into a rhythm. Swerve sternly told his ventilation system to stay steady. Tailgate was kicking in time to counting the screws above him, and he didn't want to mess up the count.

Whoever had built this ship had gone the discount builder route. The two Minibots had been searching for screwholes everywhere, because placement of those was unpredictable at best, exasperating at worst. There had been one way up in the corner that had been glued into place but hadn't been drilled into anything, which they'd only discovered once they'd wasted time and effort prying it loose. They had a rough idea of how many screws were supposed to be used, however, so Tailgate was trying to do the guess-timating to work out how many more they needed to find.

Swerve leaned his forehelm against the back of Tailgate's thigh as he set the slightly smaller Minibot on Mount St. Potential Injury again. That aft left his tire, and he missed it already. "Yeah. That's great." His voice was as loud and confident as ever, because it _was_ great. More than great. Fantastic. He was in no hurry for Tailgate to leave. Nobody else was coming, it seemed. It was just him, Tailgate's cuteness, and a lack of swag tonight.

At this rate, he'd have to scrape swag off his interface drive. Frag-flavored Swerve swag to finally make a move on fraggable Tailgate cuteness.

...at this rate, Swerve kind of hoped everyone else stayed away.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Tailgate - "I work out"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Cyclonus paused outside his door. He was not usually one for hesitation, especially out of consideration for others, but tonight he hesitated. One optic twitched slightly. Perhaps it was less consideration for others and more a desire to preserve his own mental health.

There were two noises coming from outside, and both heralded things he did not want to walk into the middle of. While he wouldn't hesitate to walk in and let his undesired roommate cope with whatever consequences resulted in assuming privacy where there was none in a shared habitation suite, there were some courtesies even he understood as polite. The _squeaka-squeaka_ of tires spinning indicated an exercise every grounder inevitably engaged in. That was not surprising, and although he didn't want to witness such a thing, embarrassment was not his first reaction. Annoyance was, actually. He should have anticipated that eventually Tailgate would wish some time alone to spin his tires.

Since he didn't have another place to be or anything left to do, Cyclonus might have still walked in. He didn't want to see Tailgate engaged in such a base activity, but ignoring the matter would have been enough for him.

However, then there was the second noise.

Swerve's nonstop chatter was audible from the hallway. Tailgate was most definitely not alone, yet tires were spinning. And _that_, Cyclonus did not wish to observe.

He did not think about why. He simply turned and continued walking down the hall.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

**_Octane and Sandstorm - "meet up again_**_"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

"Why are we doing this again?" Sandstorm peered around the corner, blaster at the ready. He looked like he was in enemy territory prepared for an attack.

Which was technically true for both of them, but Octane looked far more relaxed. "Because they asked." He shrugged when his Autobot pal gave him a peeved look. "No, seriously. That's all there is to it." He sauntered around the corner holding a rifle propped against one shoulder. He'd borrowed it from the Autobot City armory. He may or may not have asked before borrowing it, something that'd only be politely queried after by Metroplex if the sorta-maybe Decepticon triple-changer tried to make the borrowing permanent. Octane did, after all, have a penchant for 'finding' shiny things that didn't belong to him and hadn't technically been stolen until someone pointed out that he wasn't returning it.

Hence Sandstorm scrambling to catch up with him, in fact, but the Autobot helicopter hadn't yet figured that fact yet out yet. Octane certainly wasn't going to tell him he had no intention of giving the 'copter back. "But - "

"Nope," Octane interrupted with ruthless cheer. "Cyclonus asked. I'm not interested in being an Autobot - no offense - "

"None taken."

" - so that means I still gotta at least pay attention when High Command says jump."

Sandstorm squinted at him. "Decepticon High Command's been saying, _'Come here so we can shoot you for treason!'_ for about six months now."

Ah, yes, good times with Starscream. Even dead, adventures with the former Air Commander had resulted in treason, treachery, and an entire faction out for his head. Octane smiled fondly. Starscream had a way of stirring the smelter, didn't he just.

"Hey, I said 'pay attention,' not 'obey.' There's a difference. Notice how Cyclonus couldn't call me up fast enough when the slag got hot? High Command says a lot, but frag if anybody obeys it to the letter." Prudent planning in Decepticon terms meant leaving useful but backstabbing glitches alive because they might become useful. Hence why Starscream had lasted so long despite how many times Megatron had bellowed for his head on a pike. Most of the Decepticons had looked the other way when Galvatron began screaming, because everyone knew just how useful Octane was.

The joys of being indispensable! Indispensable, that was, under certain conditions and backed up by fine-print spelling out a list of allies as long and tough as Trypticon's tail. Including the Autobots, because Octane was easy.

As Sandstorm well knew. "Eventually, that's going to come back to bite you," he warned the other mech.

"Not as long as I don't ever officially ditch the Decepticons."

That got a fond but resigned sigh. Why would Octane join the Autobots when he could get everything he wanted while playing refugee? "And why would you? You can play both sides like the manipulative fragger you are and still come out smelling like you didn't steal the distillery." Sandstorm shook his head. "No offense."

"None taken." Octane smirked, hoisted the rifle into position, and snapped off a shot. Something up ahead squealed and fell with a _thunk_, and both mechs jogged up the corridor to investigate. "Woo, that's a big one! No wonder they called in the professional!" Using the rifle barrel, the triple-changer managed to lever the carcass over onto its belly so they could get a good look at it. "Hmm. Not a clone, I don't think."

"It doesn't match any of my files for the three known Earth Insecticons," Sandstorm said as he prodded the smoking wound. He went briefly still as he ran a scan through the open hole into what was left of the bug's head. "Basic processors only. It **is** a clone." He knelt and angled so he could see it from the front. Those mandibles looked familiar. "It looks a lot like the other ones we've gotten so far, too."

Octane groaned deeply as he checked the charge on 'his' rifle. "Frag. I was hoping it was just a temporary colony, not an infestation."

"What the difference?" The slightly smaller mech rose to chase after the Decepticon now briskly striding off like there was a fuel pick-up somewhere he had to intercept.

"Earth was claimed as, who was it…Kickback? Kickback's territory years ago, but the smaller Insecticons could be moving in on the place now that the three head honchos got Unicroned."

"Unicron's not a verb."

"He is now." Octane flashed a dazzling smile over his shoulder, and Sandstorm had to laugh. "Right, so Trypty-baby here," he patted a wall affectionately, an absent-minded habit that had been boggling Sandstorm since they'd arrived, "would make decent transport if you wanted to immigrate to a nice new world. Buuuuut," he drew out, casually checking around a corner with all lethal habit Sandstorm sometimes forgot he possessed, "all we've seen is clones of the same Insecticon. And they're eating the walls instead of using the place as a homebase, so - yeah. Infestation."

Sandstorm caught up with his friend at the next dropshaft and slid into a crouch to check downward as Octane checked upward. "What's that mean in terms of us running around shooting things?" Those were good terms to be informed of. Especially since those were the terms that Decepticon High Command had urgently unofficially/officially (Sandstorm suspected Cyclonus had somehow bypassed telling Galvatron) requested Octane visit one itchy, irate fortress-former under.

"Means," they gave identical grunts as they swung out in tandem to start climbing up the dropshaft ladder, "Trypty-baby's got a parasite. We've got to take out whatever Insecticon's made himself fat and happy living off my buddy. After that, we're golden. His self-defense systems should be able to snipe the rest of the swarm."

Looking up gave Sandstorm an optic-full of Decepticon aft. He was guiltily aware that he was looking up far too often for operational security. There could be twenty Insecticon clones coming up the dropshaft underneath them, for all he knew. "Uh, okay. You seem awful blasé about all this."

Octane shrugged, but he also looked down and winked. He knew exactly what was being stared at. "We all pick up the odd unwelcome passenger. No point in getting upset about it."

That sounded kind of like an oblique stab at him, actually. "Oh?" Sandstorm's voice sharpened a tad. "And what've you picked up?"

"You really wanna know?" Darkened optics looked down at him.

By now, he felt sort of hurt by the round-about jab. "Yes!"

Octane looked upward and heaved a resigned sigh. "Sand mites. I haven't even **been** in the desert for a year, and I **still** can't get them out of my upholstery."

"…oh."

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Soundwave & Cyclonus - "jealousy"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Jealousy is like the wind.

Hot wind, desert-dry air blowing flecks and sand into miniscule cracks. They fester the longer he fails to dig them back out. Even if they are painstakingly cleansed, the weaknesses continue to be exploited. There is no pause for healing, only the relentless air in motion eroding him away. The wind gets into everything, every nook and cranny, and they are never free from the small, stinging pressures that remind him they are there. The wind always continues. There is never an end to it.

It saws over his audios, back and forth in whooshing gusts carrying its irritating grit. This is not the air of Earth with its biological contaminates and variations in composition. The damp sweeps of that planet's air feels comparatively soft, and it changes depending on the day, the time, the season. The weather on Charr never changes. Nothing ever grows. Nothing ever _can_. It is a sterile, hostile world, and its wind represents it. Jealousy is its ambassador, and envy its soldier. Violence and hatred govern it.

This world is shaped by that. The heat torches the atmosphere until everything reeks of torment, and the wind stirs that until it pours across him in molten, interminable waves. Rust and flecks of silicon scour his plating as if they would wear him down like they have the landscape. The hollow, inorganic skeleton of Charr yawns greedily toward the sky, empty and consumptive at the same time. He can sympathize.

He can, but he doesn't. He listens to Charr, he watches it destroy itself, but he refuses to be it. He refuses to be defined by it. He doesn't, however, deny that Charr's haunted ruins are his own home. The hungry sky tears him down in inevitable return to its clutches. He leaves, hears other things, but this is where he returns to.

Not to the planet, but to the one on it. What is a follower without someone to follow? He leaves to go where he is led, as the wind comes and goes, chained to the source but freed by it. Galvatron leads ever onward, and he follows. Galvatron is the reason the wind blows.

Cybertron defines his rival. His rival stands by him even now, and the wind carries echoes of metal and acid rain, long roads and tall towers. He listens, and it's not the sound of his world. He can hear it soughing through the air, but it evades him. Like the wind, it cannot be caught. Trap it, carrying it to another place, release it - and the wind has died in its cage. It becomes nothing but air without something to drive it. Cybertron drives his rival, and Soundwave is defined by it.

It is not right that Cybertron stands at his Lord's hand where Cyclonus should be. Yet that is what Galvatron commands, and so shall it be. Yet the feelings infect him, defying explanation, refusing to be pinned down. They stand together at Galvatron's beck and call, Cylonus and his rival, and there is always a noiseless background motion between them: an invisible waver in the air, a thing that isn't, a nonexistent drift of emotion and illogic.

Envy is like the wind, and Cyclonus wonders what Soundwave hears blown between them.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Cyclonus & the Armada - "genderswap"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

It took five days for them to notice a difference between their Unicronian brethren and themselves.

They might have noticed earlier if not for Unicron's defeat and Lord Galvatron' disappearance. That sent the protocols into automatic dormancy, which was when they noticed that they even had them. They were both fairly certain that they hadn't had them before. The function option was firmly set to 'off' since their lives were in total upset at the moment, but it was still _there_. Not that it mattered much, but the option gave them something to puzzle over while resting between searches. Why had Unicron felt the need to change that which they had been?

The Unmaker had, however, changed more and deeper than mere gender. Neither of them remembered enough about their previous lives to feel any sort of dissonance, and there was really only one main function that redefined Cybertronian gender. It wasn't a function that could be used until there was an element of stability that was currently missing in their lives, just like the rest of Cybertron's scattered children. The function was dormant, and as puzzling it was to suddenly possess the option of future activation, it was hardly a pressing issue. As long as they could fight the Autobots and search for their Lord, gender wasn't of any importance.

The difference quickly passed from their minds in favor of the search.

They did, eventually, find Lord Galvatron. Cyclonus and the Armada both heaved twin sighs of relief, then bent to their Lord's will almost happily. Charr was hardly a glorious homeworld, but mighty empires arose from humble beginnings. It had a sort of bleak appeal, for a sterile planet. It wasn't metal, but it also didn't host any disgusting organic lifeforms, either. Cyclonus and the Armada found that appealing. They set about sculpting it and the remaining Decepticons to their Lord's desires.

Meanwhile, the gender function patiently pinged them every time they felt safe. Security was difficult to find in war, explaining why their gender had been mostly eradicated on Cybertron as the protocols slowly purged in favor of war-related functions, but Lord Galvatron's very presence was enough to wrap Cyclonus and his Armada in blissful comfort. They debated activating the protocols, but it always seemed not quite the right time for one reason or another.

The aborted function did have outward signs if anyone had bothered to look closely. The Constructicons certainly would have spotted the signs, but they were busy building for the glory of Lord Galvatron. Or at least for the glory of a roof over their heads.

It took five weeks for the Sweeps to figure out what they were seeing, and that only because the Sweeps got everywhere and into everything. Their claws always itched to dig into others in any way possible. Gossip was as good as bodily damage when off the battlefield. They clustered outside a particular door inside newly constructed Charr base, and they waited eagerly for that door to open so they could confirm their whispered theory.

Cyclonus opened the door, looked at the ravening horde, and his Armada sighed behind him. "Yes? Did you need something?"

"Is it **true**?" somebody asked from the back.

The Armada sighed again, and Cyclonus stood aside to let the flock in. This would likely be a discussion too long to hold in the hallway, after all.

The Sweeps tittered and invaded their quarters in a flurry of wings. Neither of them felt like attempting to calm the gossips down. They let the busybodies explore and flutter about them, not bothered at all by multiple voices prying for details. The clones meant nothing harmful with their information-greed. They were simply curious about the difference, just as Cyclonus and his Armada had once been. The Sweeps wanted to examine the function protocols and compare, searching their own code in vain hope that maybe one of them was more than a clone, more than an echo of Scourge, but no. Unicron had twisted only three mechs into being. The Armada and the Sweeps were merely shadows of Cyclonus and Scourge, respectively. Since Scourge had no option to activate this function, then the Sweeps didn't, either.

That didn't stop them from kicking up a fuss about the fact that Cyclonus and his Armada could. There were no other Decepticons on Charr of the near-vanished gender, and the Sweeps were bored. Avidly pouring over the miniscule difference was free entertainment, in their optics. For a few days, neither Cyclonus nor his Armada could venture anywhere without at least two Sweeps dancing attendance.

There were some things the Decepticons got used to, and a chattering crowd of Sweeps flooding down the halls in someone's wake was just one of them. Deadly spawn of the Unmaker they might be, but the Decepticons on Charr knew harmless when it giggled and whispered at them. It happened so often during downtime that not even Swindle paid any attention to what exactly the whispers were saying this time.

Therefore, it took five more days for Scourge to notice what his Sweeps had picked up on. "You couldn't tell me?" he asked his superiors, and the two merely looked at him. "...right. Probably not something I should have needed to be told."

"Does it matter?" one of them asked, and Scourge blinked for a moment as he turned that over.

"Not really. Should it?"

They smiled and held their tongues, and the Sweeps continued fluttering. The pings kept coming. Cyclonus and his Armada continued to decline the protocol activation.

Until one day, they didn't. "Today?"

"Yes."

It just felt right. Perhaps because Lord Galvatron had decided to strike out in another direction, leaving the Autobots on Cybertron and Earth to their own devices for a while. Conquest of species other than their own was so much easier, the duo had decided. It was practically a vacation.

That reduced the stress of combat even further. Intensive planning sessions kept them close and comforted by their Lord's presence and power.

Whatever the reason, it felt right. They let the function online and activated their alternate option. Gender, for their kind and despite Unicron's strange meddling, was as easy as that.

It still took five months for the other Decepticons to notice. Maybe it was because nothing else changed. Maybe it was because no one recognized the signs any more. Maybe it was because the fluttering was so normal by then that the Decepticons didn't think twice about why there was an explosion of wings and laughter outside Cyclonus and his Armada's quarters. The flock swirled and shouted, Scourge wearily waded through his subordinates to try and control them, and Lord Galvatron strutted proudly. All of that was rather normal for the Decepticon base on Charr.

Lord Galvatron throwing a fit because the Constructicons hadn't already produced frames for the rest of Cyclonus' Armada? A little less normal. The Decepticon leader seriously didn't get why his followers' collective jaws dropped at the news that there were half a dozen new sparks ready for bodies. Turned out that he'd known all along. The other Decepticons felt like blind idiots for not noticing to begin with, but they scrambled to catch up to the obvious quick enough. The Constructicons slapped together frames based on the Armada's schematics, and life on Charr went on as per usual. Just…with options.

Some information was time-sensitive, life-changing, and need-to-know for a faction trying to take over the universe. Gender? Not so much.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Cyclonus - "herding combiners"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

He hovered over them constantly, which annoyed them to no end.

"We are not **incompetent**," Hook groused, but in an undertone. That untouchable status skill and rank had bought him under Megatron's regime wasn't so untouchable anymore. His confidence had been severely shaken by the number of times Galvatron had backhanded him. His distaste for brute force methods was only outdone by his fear of them being applied to him.

"Let him watch. It won't hurt us." As much as Scrapper shared his irritation at the flyer watching them from above, he also shared the lack of confidence. At this point, the Decepticons walked very, very carefully no matter their status. The only thing that deterred Galvatron from impulsively shooting someone - anyone - who enraged him was Cyclonus.

Cyclonus could stay up there and watch for hours, as far as Scrapper was concerned. Better that than the Decepticon Second deciding to staying out of it the next time Galvatron took it in his head to beat the scrap out of one of the Constructicons. Specifically Hook, who couldn't control his innate arrogance on a good day, much less on a day when he got his crane line in a twist because their mad leader decided to change something.

Onslaught seemed to be on the same page as Scrapper. "You take one potshot at him," Scrapper heard the Combaticon leader hiss at Vortex, "and you're on your own. Like the Pit am I pulling your rotor blades out of whatever hole you dig yourself this time."

The helicopter snorted. "Like he'd be able to pin it on me?"

Bonecrusher and Long Haul took a healthy step away from Ground Zero. Onslaught turned a burning visor on his insolent subordinate, and behind Vortex, Blast Off's annoyed sigh was clearly audible. Brawl and Swindle were already taking bets with the Predacons. Swindle appeared to have sold Hun-Grr something small and crunchy to snack on while the show happened.

"Is there a problem down there?" Cyclonus called sharply, and everyone snapped to attention. In Hun-Grr's case, that involved swallowing a hunk of something improperly chewed and horking loudly as it caught in his throat.

"No sir!" all three combiner team leaders called back up to him. Well, Hun-Grr sort of garbled an approximation of that upward in the midst of his coughing fit.

Cyclonus eyed him critically. "Do you require assistance?"

"No sir," Hun-Grr wheezed. With one last wretching cough, he hacked up the snack chunk and let it drop to the ground. He heaved, trying to get his ventilation system to assist in unlocking the choked intake, but managed a halfway respectful salute. "Little ben-neath your skillset, sir."

"Suck up," someone sneered behind him, and the Predacon leader's optics went incandescent. He turned with slow menace. Sinnertwin was, unfortunately enough, the only one not paying attention at the time. Hun-Grr vomiting up (and then re-eating) inappropriately-sized items was common enough that the Predacons were used to the sound effects. Sinnertwin had gotten bored and was looking in another direction. Two directions, in fact, which made it look like calculated innocence.

That was as good as a signed confession in Decepticon terms.

Onslaught booted Vortex straight into the fray when Hun-Grr went for Sinnertwin's throats. Both Predacons promptly turned on the 'copter, which was justice in the Combaticon leader's mind. Pitching the guilty party in like that was practically an apology to the other combiner team, really. He'd only step in to interfere if Vortex started enjoying it.

Scrapper looked up at the thunderous frown hovering above them and winced. Cyclonus evidently didn't approve of inter-team discipline a la Onslaught and Hun-Grr.

He winced even worse when Hook sniffed and said loud and clear, "Now, **they** are incompetent."

It took Cyclonus and five Sweeps to break up the resulting brawl.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_ Human to Cybertronian - "psychological effects"_

The Primus Adoption Society or 'Why Earth Keeps Happening'

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Having the Prime go into a coma periodically was always jarring, but as he himself said wryly enough about it, "When the Matrix calls, the Primes listen."

"He's been listening an awful long time," Jazz said quietly after the third week. Three weeks of cleverly covering for the Prime's absence was starting to wear on even him.

"Wish he'd listen to me that closely," Ratchet snapped right back as he delicately adjusted the cerebral monitor he'd installed after the first week. Normally, the Primes meditated for a couple hours or even days, just lightly getting in touch with the artifact they carried. Not Optimus. He conked out, bypassing a shallow meditation for an outright coma every time. It's like the war made the Matrix decide it _had_ to have the Prime's complete attention. That left the Prime's chief medic fretting, however. "Readings are still good. Whatever the Matrix has to say this time, Optimus is paying attention like nobody's business."

Prowl met each of the officer's optics solemnly. "Last time, Prime came out of his vision demanding to meet with Megatron in person. I think we can all remember how well **that** went."

It'd gone about as well as could be expected, given the circumstances of the meeting had been in the middle of pitched battle. Megatron had not taken well to Optimus Prime all but tackling him on the battlefield. Not that he ever did, but that particular instance had involved the Prime wildly shouting something about Primus giving him an ultimatum. Megatron had actually listened - stunned and unable to believe his audios, admittedly - before yelling back. It'd devolved into a shouting match, then a wrestling match with lasers and swords, and then somebody had brought out a cityformer, what the frag, that wasn't even fair.

So, yeah. They all remembered. Things had gone downhill from there. The _war_ had gone downhill from there. Optimus Prime had been depressed for weeks afterward.

He'd refused to tell them why, too. That had been the truly frustrating part. "It won't help," he'd said quietly, refusing to look at any of them. "There's nothing any of you can do that you're not already doing. I did my best. I can only hope it was enough for Primus."

Apparently not.

"**Get your aft back in medbay!**" roared loud enough to be heard on the _Ark_'s bridge was everyone's first clue that something was wrong. Ratchet thundered when he wanted to be heard. The Aerialbots all glanced upward when he spoke as if expecting stormclouds. When the medic yelled his head off after someone, that someone _knew_.

The obscene noise level was met by the usual belated response from Beachcomber. He looked up after a full minute and asked, "Was that Ratchet?"

Everyone else side-eyed him. He peacefully smiled back. It'd take a lot more than Prime bursting through the doors to rattle his composure. The rest of the bridge shift dove for cover or fell into combat stances, but Beachcomber merely greeted him with, "Oh, hey, you're awake. That's cool."

Prime slid to a stop beside the laid-back Autobot's duty station. "Yes, I am," he said with a calm totally belied by how he yanked Beachcomber out of the chair. "Excuse me, I have to find someone."

"No problem." Beachcomber, unlike Prowl, Ratchet, and half the off-duty Autobots who'd just stampeded onto the bridge in Optimus' wake, handled the sudden displacement well. The rest of the mechs - who'd evidently chased the Prime through the _Ark_ to get here - stood in the doorway looking frazzled. Beachcomber just leaned on the Prime's shoulder and pointed at the icon for Sky Spy. "It's already launched, if you're lookin' for somebody in particular."

"I am, thank you," Prime said absently as the officers descended upon him in a bleating herd, "but not one of us. Or rather, not yet. Or - that is, she is, but she's not yet, or - this is confusing. I know I've asked you this before," Ratchet paused in checking the Prime's still-open cranial casing as the question was addressed to him, "but why do concepts conveyed by the Matrix seem so obvious **then** and so difficult to understand **now**?"

Ratchet eyed him warily. "Because your processors are substituted by the Matrix itself, which so far as we understand, is still connected to the Sigma chambers back on Cybertron. That's a huge amount of power difference, not to mention processor capability. Vector Sigma may be offline, but there are at least three others buried but still functional."

"I know that," Optimus murmured, still worriedly scanning through what looked like tax census of South Carolina. "In fact, at exactly 3:34 PM today, Eastern Standard Time, one of those Sigma chambers will be facing Earth as Cybertron rotates. If we do not reach one Mrs., ah," he read off the screen, "Jean Dalia Krogers by then, there will be an incident caused by that convergence. Um." He hesitated, went back, and reworded his statement. "No, there's going to be an incident. Nothing we do is going to stop that. I couldn't - Primus decided despite what I tried to - I - "

The Autobots stepped back as their leader stood up. He drew his shoulders back as if to give an inspirational speech, then deflated. He gave them a helpless look instead.

"I have no idea how to explain this properly," he admitted, looking rather pathetic for a mech who could normally inspire a rock with one of his speeches. He blinked at the assembly, which blinked back, and drew in a calming vent. He pushed it back out in a long sigh. "Ah...Primus has decided that since we, His children, will not cease fighting and killing each other, then He will not create any more of us."

There was a short silence as the Autobots glanced at each other. "That's not really new," Jazz ventured after a moment. "I mean, aside from our miracle jets here," he jerked his head at Silverbolt, who smiled awkwardly, "the Sigma chambers have been useless for millions of years. Primus drag you in for an extended lecture on the war?"

"That's not fair," Ironhide groused from the back of the crowd. "Ain't anybody's fault but the Decepticreeps! Tell Him to go lay ol' buckethead out in a coma for three weeks!"

"What does this have to do with a human?" Ratchet carefully reached up to finish closing Optimus' helm, but he paused with his hand still on the Prime's head. "What? What'd I say?"

Optimus slumped further and mumbled something at the floor.

"What?"

A puzzled murmur swept the Autobots. "You don't want a - did you say 'baby sister'?"

"Why the frag would he say that?"

"You didn't hear him right. Optimus?"

The Prime winced and repeated himself a tad bit louder.

"...yeah, he said 'baby sister.'"

The big Autobot heaved another sigh, this one large enough that it came out his exhaust stacks. "Primus has decided that since His current children all want to kill each other, He's going to adopt. He spent the whole time we were in statis under this mountain negotiating with the, er," he looked tremendously uncomfortable at this, because most of the Autobots had scoffed in private at the 'crazy mythologies' the humans of Earth believed in, "local gods for...for...well, younger siblings."

He tucked into himself at the frankly incredulous looks the Autobots were turning on him. Ratchet's optics glazed in horror beside him. Jazz's mouth fell open. Disbelief ran smack up against the fact that this was the Prime, the Prime carried the Matrix, and historically speaking, Primus had spoken through the Matrix to his Primes. Not _frequently_, but reliably. Meaning that if Optimus Prime said that's what Primus had decided to do, then Primus really had decided to do it.

Those crazy human gods were _real_? Wait, Primus had _negotiated_ with them? For children. Not demanded: negotiated. Negotiated? As in, between gods of equal status? For, what, adoptive siblings to stand beside - not behind - stand _beside_ the current crop of Cybertronians?

The humans were their _equals_?!

A funny squeeble-wark came from somebody's vocalizer as that fact hit home. It wasn't that the Autobots actively looked down upon Earth's dominant species, but it was kind of hard to regard humans as fully equal sentients when even the youngest Autobot was older than their entire race. There had been…doubts…raised.

But for every doubter, there'd been a believer. Bumblebee's horn honked triumphantly, although he hid his grinning behind his hand when his neighbors turned to stare at him in astonishment. Ironhide's glare wasn't enough to stop Tracks' unabashed smile. The vain Corvette silently licked a finger and chalked a sizzling mark on an invisible scoreboard between them, and Ironhide scowled.

Optimus watched the universe tip on its end for half the room and nodded heavily. "Younger siblings who will guided as we once were: directly by our creator. Until such a point that He feels they, too, can be allowed to make their own way in the universe." He left out the rebuke Primus had sternly laid on him about how the current children of Cybertron had decided that killing each other was the way they wanted to go. It wasn't like the Autobots didn't already know that war had torn Cybertron apart, and that Primus thoroughly disapproved of it.

The Prime did nurse a secret glee for just how the Decepticons were going to take the news. It'd been a long, long time since Primus had taken a direct hand in His children's lives. Megatron was likely going to run head-first into that hand. Optimus couldn't wait to see _that_ happen.

Before that happened, however, there was the slight matter of the new children. Optimus shifted uneasily, which attracted the stunned crowd's gaze again. New children tended to bring out jealousy in the old ones, and sibling rivalry could invoke parental wrath, in this case. He really hoped none of the Autobots went that far, because this was officially out of his hands.

That probably wasn't going to go over well, but they didn't have time for him to break the news gently.

"At 3:34 PM today, Mrs. Jean Dalia Krogers is going to be formally adopted by Primus. It, uh, is going to be more than a bit unsettling for her especially since…ah…" He coughed. Close listeners might have heard a very hurried series of words in the undertone.

Ratchet, who was the only one close enough to have heard, froze. Then he promptly dropped to the floor as his processors crashed.

Optimus looked down at him, pained; that did not bode well for how everyone else was going to take this.

He visibly shook himself free of his worried thoughts and squared his shoulders. "Well. I can't change Primus' mind on this matter, and Mrs. Krogers is only going to be the first in what appears to be a long list of adoptees. I was told to, um. Pretty much make way, because we're getting siblings whether we like it or not." Primus was a single parent Who'd tolerated enough of this civil war slag from His kids. They'd grown up into a terrible civilization, in His opinion. He'd given that opinion at length to Optimus, who now had to prepare for the arrival of the next batch of (hopefully better behaved) kids.

Speaking of which, they were running rather short on time for the first arrival. "We need to leave, **now**. Skyfire!"

Optimus Prime strode through the stunned group of Autobots, and anyone who listened closely might have heard him whimper. Ratchet would have sympathized. Brave façade or not, i wasn't every day that Cybertronians were upstaged by a younger race. Especially when that race became another race, the _Cybertronian_ race, and then _won_ the race, and, oh, hey, congrats on the new Prime who was going to take up the Matrix at approximately 3:35 PM, Eastern Standard Time.

**[*****]**

"Hmmph."

"Ah. Daliamus, ma'am?" Prowl peered around the office door. "You're on the network again." He ducked, half-expecting to get hit in the face by a pair of hoop earrings. Nobody knew why Primus had chosen to allow His new Prime her earrings, but getting smacked by Cybertronian-sized hoop earrings was an experience no one wanted to repeat.

When the earrings came off, even Megatron ran. Although Starscream had taken up the new Prime's distinctive Z-snap with his own flair, and she'd laughed hard enough at his imitation that it seemed she liked the Air Commander, now. It helped that they'd held some sort of sass-off wherein Starscream had held his own. He'd lost in the end, of course, but Daliamus Prime could out-sass anybody when it came to Earth standards. Which were the new standards for judging Cybertronians, so Starscream wasn't quite up to speed, yet.

He'd taken his loss well. He'd still worn that slightly shock-glazed look of disbelief most everyone was wearing, but he was able to function around the universe as he knew it being turned on its head. That put him ahead of a lot of mechs right now.

The Autobots had adjusted quicker than the Decepticons, but that was through constant exposure. And the efforts of the ex-Prime, who'd been the one to push Prowl into approaching the office door today. Otherwise the executive officer would have dithered about outside the officer for another hour trying to reconcile 'Prime' and 'human.' Also 'earrings' and 'weaponry.' That was another difficult one to fit together in his processors.

The hands that had been, once again, trying to pry off the new Prime's face mask lowered, and Daliamus turned wide optics on Prowl. "I **am**? How can you tell?" Between the voice in her chest from Primus and the voices that randomly spoke to her from communication link-ups in her helm, she often couldn't tell when someone was specifically speaking to her, or if they could hear her in return.

It seemed the earrings would stay on. For now, anyway. Prowl ventured out from behind the doorway to enter the office. "I don't think you meant to inform everyone of your wish to have lost ten more pounds before, er," he paused and censored what she'd actually said into something slightly less acidic, "becoming one of us."

"Ten pounds? When did I say - oh." It _had_ been quite a while ago that she'd bemoaned that. Prowl had been dithering a while. She gave him a look he couldn't interpret. Human facial expressions, as much as the Autobots could imitate them, had nothing on Primus' frame designs for His new children. The face mask didn't stop Daliamus' optics from conveying an almost impossible amount of emotion. "Were you guys listening to me the whole time?" she asked suspiciously.

Prowl suspected that if he'd been human right now, his face would be flaming in embarrassment. His feet shuffled a bit, and he locked himself at attention to keep from looking at anything but his new Prime. "Not intentionally, ma'am," he said, apologetic. "You started broadcasting about the time you were, ah, evaluating your bodywork. Ratchet wishes me to inform you that your colors can be changed if you decide on a different palette, ma'am. If that will make you feel more comfortable."

Anything to make her feel more comfortable in her body would be provided, to the best of their abilities. Ratchet couldn't give her a face back - or hair, skin, or human-normal bodily functions - but the Autobots could consciously choose not to blame her for things she couldn't control. It wasn't her fault she couldn't consciously find or access the CPU commands to get on and off the network. All the Autobots could do was keep informing her when she dropped on in hopes that she'd eventually figure out what she'd done right or wrong that time.

And try not to be embarrassed by what they overheard. Prowl was still working on that one. He found himself looking at the ceiling as he made himself pass on the next message. "For the record, Jazz wishes me to inform you that your, er, aft is not a box." That was paraphrasing again. Her opinion on what Cybertronian 'booty' looked like hadn't been flattering. "He says that it's shaped quite nicely for...for our species."

He winced when he glanced downward. Her optics had gone dark as the reminder caused her mood to plummet. Again. It would be hard to blame her for her anger and depression. Two weeks as a Cybertronian, and Mrs. Krogers still couldn't tell when she was on or off the communications network. She also couldn't figure out how to shut her optics off, dial up her audios, or give a crap about Cybertron, its occupants, or its history, much less its war. She was still trying to deal with being a mechanical lifeform instead of, well, what she'd always been.

It was not an adjustment that was happening quickly. Or well.

That initial moment of transformation? The Autobots were lucky Primus was helping out, because they were pretty much useless. Sideswipe had screamed as loud as the new Prime had, and the only reason Prowl hadn't followed suit was that awe and terror had locked up his vocalizer before the shriek could escape. Ratchet had frozen, hands twitching helplessly as a medical impossibility had occurred right in front of him. She'd proceeded to have a panic attack at his feet, complete with uncoordinated thrashing that'd nearly floored him before Optimus Prime had demanded he _do_ something to _help_ or _get out of the way_.

The panic attack had been a well-deserved one. From human to metal in 3 seconds flat. Frankly, looking back at it, Prowl was surprised that Daliamus had calmed down at all, much less within three hours.

It'd taken Ratchet turning off every tactile sensor he could with sensor blocks - he told her he'd 'doped' her with 'painkillers' because there was no way she could have understood she _had_ a sensory network now, much less how a medic could tamper with it - before she even got outside her own head enough to realize she hadn't just gone insane. That her body had changed, and that's why her mind had gone completely wonky. That this was real.

Yeah, three hours had been fairly short, looking back at it knowing what Prowl knew now. It was one thing to know that humans and Cybertronians were different, and another thing transmuting a human into one of them. The sheer scale of differences between the two races had made Daliamus Prime's life a total nightmare that she couldn't wake up from. The Autobots had helplessly tried to talk her through the initial panic, but everything they thought of as normal was sixty kinds of screwed up wrong to a human. They'd only put pressure on her that'd made the panic worse.

Optimus no-longer-Prime had all but promised her the moon in order just to get her to go back to the _Ark_ with them. The Autobots were alien threats, to her fear-riddled, nigh-insensible mind. He'd coaxed her onboard Skyfire with gentle words.

That he'd failed to deliver on. She wanted to be turned back to what she was. Frag, the _Autobots_ wanted her to go back to what she was! But Primus refused. Three days later, she'd stubbornly _walked_ all the way back to South Carolina. The Autobots had practically screamed in frustration and terror as their Primus-chosen, Primus-made Prime tried her best to reject them. She'd wobbled out the door.

They couldn't really _stop_ her from leaving them. They had no right to her life or choices. Some of them didn't even want to acknowledge her as one of them, but Primus had nipped that one in the bud by stripping Optimus of the Matrix and installing it in His new Prime. That didn't make her any less of a human, however. She was still a citizen of the United States of America. The government kept throwing demands at the Autobots, insisting that she be turned over to her country. Her congregation called hourly to check up on her. Her friends were having fits on her behalf. Her Congressman met her at the South Carolina state border to welcome her home.

In the end, Primus had persuaded her to give the Autobots a chance. Or maybe they'd convinced her of their sincere concern for her well-being during the long cross-country walk. Most likely, her inability to deal with her new body had played a large factor in the decision to return to the _Ark_. Primus had just been the deciding factor. Having a foreign god talking in her head hadn't done anything for her stability, that was for certain. She kept calling her pastor for counseling.

Two weeks on, and she still didn't know how to transform. She was so upset by the changes that she occasionally broke down crying. Well, trying to cry and then panicking when she couldn't. Robots couldn't cry. Robots also didn't sleep in soft beds, eat hot food, drink lemonade, or wear clothing. There wasn't a single aspect of her life that hadn't suddenly been warped. Nothing felt okay, and she'd had ventilation glitches for six days in a row until Ratchet spent the seventh day interfaced with her systems teaching her how to unlearn breathing. She still slipped up when she got upset, which was most of the time.

Megatron had backpeddled away from her heaving bosom with horrified looks at both said bosom and the fact it kept heaving. Optimus Prime - now Orion Pax again - had gingerly taken on explaining to the Decepticons what exactly had happened, was happening right now, and was going to continue happening no matter how many times Megatron said, "But!"

He said that a lot. Prowl had stopped counting after the first hundred sputtered half-words from the Decepticon tyrant. Orion Pax simply kept patiently reiterating the same thing, for the rest of the Decepticons if not Megatron himself. As Starscream had proven, the facts had sunk in for _some_ of them. Protests aside, the Autobots and Decepticons could do nothing to stop Primus. Humanity was getting adopted.

Not to say Megatron hadn't tried to put an end to the new Prime. He'd taken a potshot at her, and the Matrix had carefully, lovingly steered the woman through slapping the ever-living bolts off of the tin tyrant.

It'd been alarming the first time. It'd been hilarious the second time, a day later. Sure, Daliamus Prime collapsed in hysterics afterward because s_omebody else_ was controlling her body, but her body was so weird now that she'd adjusted to being possessed by Primus relatively quickly. It helped that the Autobots tried to debrief her on Cybertron's Great War. And by 'helped,' that meant she'd been so furious at the whole in-fighting stupid bunch of them that she'd thrown her earrings at Prowl's head, then threatened to put Megatron over her knee and whale some manners into him when she caught him a third time not twelve hours after she kicked his can the second time. Apparently, she neither understood the civil war nor cared to try any longer. They were on Earth, now, and the rules had changed.

Everyone present had looked up what the colloquialism had meant. Both factions had stared at each other, speechless, when they figured it out.

Starscream had prudently stepped back from the conflict, an act that the quicker-thinking among them copied immediately. They'd stood on the sidelines watching Primus possess the new Prime and follow through on the threat when Megatron didn't back down. She'd not only spanked the Decepticon's leader until he stopped struggling and grated out a rage-filled, humiliated apology, but she'd told off Astrotrain, Skywarp, Sideswipe, and Cliffjumper for being 'bad children' and laughing at the spectacle. Seeing all four mechs shuffling their feet in front of her, shamefaced, had been almost as shocking as watching Megatron limp from a sore aft.

There was something about having Primus glaring at them through Daliamus Prime's optics that really let the Autobots and Decepticons known that He'd had it with their war. Primus had new babies to take care of now, and the elder children had better get with the program. Or _else_.

She hadn't even had to chase the 'bad children' down by the fifth Decepticon attack. Megatron himself had fled, but half of the Decepticons lurked around the battlefield until the new Prime demanded mumbled apologies for their behavior. She'd read them the riot act, too. While spitting blue fire and channeling energy from Primus' Sigma chambers.

Both sides of the battle were scared lube-less of her by the time she'd wound down. Momma Prime had a temper, and Poppa Primus was backing her to the hilt.

That'd made it even more frightening when she'd said, "I should turn you human! See if anyone **here** wants you, because heck if **I** do!"

That? That had not been something anyone wanted to hear from their god or the new Prime, who might have been speaking on behalf of their god. Or not. She refused to tell. Either way, the Decepticons hadn't been seen in battle since. In quick snatches when Autobot scouts were pounced on for updates on what was going on, yes, but not outright warfare. After daily harassment from Megatron, the sudden absence of aggression practically echoed.

Hence, the fear of the earrings coming off. Daliamus Prime still couldn't walk in a straight line or understand why picking at her lugnuts in public glued everyone's optics to the ceiling, but the woman could intimidate the lot of them by existing. She was the new Prime, the first of Primus' adopted children, and she was here to usher in a new era.

New, because even now she was sighing and standing up. "2:56 AM, Indonesia. There's a - oh, the poor dear." Even over the network, because she still didn't have the faintest clue how to get herself off it, she sounded distressed. Prowl tensed unconsciously. "A nine-year-old street child. We have to get there right away!"

It was too much to hope that the Sigma chamber would transform the child with any semblance of a language database. "Jazz, meet us at the hangar bay. Download as many local languages as you can on the way." Hopefully, there would be somebody available who could translate if downloads didn't work.

Prowl was beginning to think that dealing with what the Sigma chambers left on Earth was the Autobots' penance for nine million years of war. It made him afraid of what price the Decepticons might pay for _their_ half of the war.

He resisted offering his new Prime an arm as she got up and immediately stumbled, taken off-balance by the wheels on her back yet again. He just stood aside respectfully and spoke onto the network. "Skyfire?"

"I'm here." The massive shuttle turned the corner and met Daliamus at the door to the office. She'd stubbornly gotten herself that far. "If I may, ma'am?" He offered her a hand gallantly.

She only frowned as she let herself be picked up. Anyone else offering to help her would have gotten a scathing torrent of words in response, but Skyfire had about as much understanding of the war as she did. He had the history she lacked, but he was a pacifist at spark. That made him much more sympathetic to her inability to comprehend nine million years of civil war than the rest of the Autobots. He also had a distinct reverence for Primus that the others were guiltily aware that they were missing. After nine million years of ignoring His will, the Autobots sort of felt like rebellious teenagers finding out their parent had been right all along. They really _had_ messed up big time and irreversibly, until starting over was the only way to salvage their world.

Primus' will was awesome and vast, but Skyfire believed it to also be right. Instead of wasting time protesting or trying to reverse the effects, he'd embraced the new siblings he'd been given. He'd done his best to help them, and he utterly cherished the four humans adopted by his god in the past two weeks. Skyfire was almost the only one of the _Ark_'s crew whom the ex-human didn't shriek in fear upon seeing.

Twin five-year-old orphans from Russia, a middle-aged farmer from Chile, and an 87-year-old woman from Saudi Arabia. Primus' new children had only two things in common: war was the last thing they wanted to be involved in, and they didn't have a clue how to live as mechanical lifeforms.

Ratchet had failed so dismally at explaining how their bodies worked that they'd almost lost the farmer, but at least the twins were curious enough about themselves that they'd gotten past the panic and shock stage after their own accidents. They'd been so ignorant that they'd drunk straight gasoline out of innocent belief that it was what their bodies ran on, now. The Chief Medical Officer had pulled them out of simultaneous fuel pump failures with his hands shaking and a continuous prayer for divine intervention spilling from his lips. Orion Pax spent his time mediating between the Autobots and their suddenly very present god these days, and Ratchet could be found with him any time he wasn't hovering worriedly over his patients. The medic was all but begging Primus for a miracle, at this point. The elderly Saudi woman still moved like her joints hurt, and Ratchet was desperately afraid they were going to lose her because her sons believed her to no longer have a soul. She'd been refusing energon ever since they severed ties with her.

Adoption was never easy, but there was no way adoptions done between worlds could be anything but traumatic. The adjustment period, it seemed, could kill. It was also frustrating, frightening, and had stomped the Great War to a halt in two weeks flat.

Daliamus Prime had made it clear that the only reason she'd come back to the _Ark_ was because Primus had talked her into it. The Autobots were weird, the Decepticons were worse, and no way was she letting them poison her fellow ex-humans with a toxic environment of war and factions. They'd better shut up and listen - all of them - before the earrings came off. Primus wasn't taking any more of their slag. It was either keep up with the new siblings or get left eating Daliamus' dust.

Prowl jogged after Skyfire, dryly reflecting that this was how the war ended, this was how the war ended, this was how the war ended.

Not with a bang, but a, "Nu-uh, girlfriend!"

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Overlord - "Tentacles"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

_There was a conversation about how Overlord couldn't get worse. I found a way._ _IDW AU where 'Siege' Fortress Maximus and 'Handle With Care (This End Up)' Vortex meet. It is not nice._

"What the frag are **you** doing here?"

Vortex kept his head down and concentrated on the keys. "Shut up, Autobot."

Usually, an order from a Decepticon on this particular shuttle would have Fort Max sullen but obedient. However, he knew a fellow prisoner when he saw one, and the rotary mech was definitely that. Besides, Overlord was on the other end of the ship. "No," he said, although he didn't stop waxing the floor. "Tell me."

"Don't talk," Vortex muttered irritably. He flicked an annoyed look at the Autobot slave and an apprehensive look at the door. Prisoners: both of them. "He's going to find a way to punish both of us. You know that."

Fort Max knew. That was how Overlord played these power games. "What do you care?" There wasn't much in his life that didn't cause pain anymore. He'd take the opportunity to indulge his curiosity, slaggit. "He can't do anything worse to me than he's already done." Hence why he kept polishing despite the careless dismissal.

That got a reaction. Vortex slowly turned his head to give him a flat look. "Overlord can **always** make it worse."

An incredulous snort cut off in a strange honking noise as something slithered up Fort Max's leg. He squawked and kicked in reflex, but the thing on his leg only tightened. He turned wide optics toward his leg to find that thin, strong cables had snaked through the bridge door and were questing up both legs. "What the frag?!"

"Didn't know he had these, huh?" Desert dry, Vortex's voice had long ago been sucked of everything but resignation. The 'copter let himself be guided out of his seat by his own set of tentacles. He didn't resist. When they urged him to his knees, he only sighed and said aloud to their absent puppet-master, "I apologize for my misconduct, Overlord sir. Please allow me to make restitution for my error."

The tentacles dragged the struggling, horrified Autobot toward him, and Vortex shook his head. "Like I said: it can always be made worse."

**[*****]**

The big Autobot's ventilation cycles were erratic, coming in odd bursts more flustered than anything else. Having an audience always humiliated him more than the sordid acts done to him, although this particular audience's participation had certainly made _those_ worse than usual. Overlord couldn't make his tap respond on a good day, much less with toys, but Vortex was small and clever and had managed to make Fort Max curl and kick when that fight was lost. It'd left his tap oversensitive, but Overlord wasn't taking advantage of that for pleasure. He was simply taking advantage of it.

"Why...the fraggeek!" The Autobot clamped his mouth shut on a strained squeak as another tentacle writhed between his thighs, prodding at the mass already bulging out of his tap. "Why the frag aren't you...nhhgh...aren't you gloating?" Maddened optics glared in the direction of the 'copter sitting in a bridge chair once more. "Fragging 'Con!"

Vortex kept his visor on his work. His mask was back in place. At least he had that much to keep the jealousy from showing, although thick envy penetrated the mask just fine. "Not worth gloating about."

"You gooah! Got your circuits off. What more do you want?!" Fortress Maximus gritted his teeth and panted into the floor as that tentacle slid, inch by slow inch, up into his tap to join the twisting, sliding mass. It felt like it was poking directly into his sensor grid. "Don't tell me you're the one slagging rapist in the 'Cons who doesn't enjoy it. I know better!"

It'd been as enjoyable as any forced interface ever was. That hadn't made Vortex ache any less afterward. "You think you have it bad?" he asked, the bitterness tearing the words out of him. The Autobot clawed at the floor, arching as the tentacles spiraled in and out in lewd parody of a mecha not even present on the bridge. "At least he touches you."

He pressed his own thighs together and stabbed viciously at the keys in front of him. The Autobot didn't know how good he had it. Overlord's punishments of Vortex were frustratingly, torturously nonphysical. It sucked the enjoyment right out of the little rape session, knowing it'd been only to humiliate Fort Max. Beyond some directions, Vortex hadn't been touched by those tentacles at all.

Fraggit.

**[*****]**

"How did you get him to stop touching you all the time?" That's right, Fort Max was just fed up enough to seek advice from a Decepticon. It was a matter of equality between prisoners, really. When a mech had tentacles shoved up his tap as he scrubbed out a storage locker, there wasn't much shame left in him. The tentacles kind of displaced it, along with his composure.

Vortex certainly seemed to know what that was like. He didn't even look up as the tentacles playfully dragged the slave out of the storage locker for more 'Quality Time A La Overlord.'

The 'copter knew better, but there was something to be said for fellow feeling. Just...for once in his existence, someone else knew exactly what it was like to be him. Not the exact circumstances, but suffering under Overlord's heel was suffering under Overlord's heel. The triple-changer just chose how to grind his foot down a bit differently on the other mech.

By now, the Autobot was pressed into the wall, shoved there face-first and held up by the tentacles holding his thighs spread so far he was having difficulty supporting his own weight. Two more tentacles waved leisurely in the large gap. The movement of air on bared equipment was enough to have Fort Max tensed in dread, but every once and a while, it apparently pleased Overlord to send those tentacles spanking at the rim of the mech's tap. Fort Max made a variety of stifled noises when that happened. The tentacles struck and slipped inside to stroke the inner threads, then spanked around the rim again and again until the big mech hissed what would have been whimpers in a weaker mech.

It'd usually have been a show Vortex would enjoy, and part of him still did. However, having that kind of pleasure-pain inflicted by Overlord inspired envy and sick sympathy as well. Holy rotor blades but did he know what it felt like to squirm and cry out under Overlord's torment. No matter what he wanted, in the end the torture always won. Overlord defeated him every time, and this Autobot knew what that felt like intimately.

It wasn't something Vortex had imagined as a relief to have someone share, but it was. Primus, it was. So he sat under his own tentacle - it had wrapped around his throat early on and hadn't moved, just resting there as a reminder that he was under Overlord's constant control - and spoke quietly at the console he was using. Orders were to stay silent, but Overlord's energy signature was all the way across the ship. Not that he wasn't eventually going to screw up and be punished, but the likelihood of being caught whispering was fairly low.

"You know what a gestalt is?"

"Lock - nght!" Fort Max grunted and swallowed, optics off. "Locked technology. Not supposed to be in-uhn! In use."

"Yeah. Well, Swindle got his mitts on it, and I'm stuck with the results." He hadn't known becoming a combiner team was permanent. The links, he'd understood. He just hadn't known how deep they went before it was too late to back out. "It's bad. Then I got sent to Overlord for my…behavior." No, Autobot, he wasn't going to elaborate. If Fort Max had any of his secure databanks intact, the mech could pull at least a pre-Earth file on him. "He might be rogue now, but he used to be Me - **Lord** Megatron's breaker." And how Vortex had broken. Oh, how he'd broken.

He had to swallow an uncomfortable noise himself, this time, just at the memory. "It got worse."

Fort Max's mouth was pressed against the wall, an open 'O' of half twisted pain and half jolting pleasure as one tentacle lightly traced just inside his tap and the other brutally smacked against the outer rim. "Don'thhhhngn don't see-euhn mm! How! You thnnnk think this isssah **ah** ah b-better!"

Vortex smiled grimly behind his mask and didn't take his visor off his work. He'd been told to enter data, and he'd enter data until told otherwise. "Unless he's messed with your hardcode to make you obedient to his every whim, shut the frag up, Autobot. I'd kill to be where you are right now, if it'd get his fingers out of my head." The tentacle around his throat shifted, and he gave the door a wary look. The ship still registered Overlord as being across the ship, but a dose of paranoia was healthy when it came to that mech. Limitations were mere trailmarkers for Overlord.

The Autobot fought against the tentacles, but his arms and legs were pinned. He slumped, making small, involuntary sounds as a third tentacle joined the two already between his thighs. Vortex grumbled his engine with envy. Just hearing it made his interface hardware ache.

_*"Vortex."*_

So much for _that_ ache. Another ache swelled up to overtake it. "Overlord sir!" He straightened in his seat, looking attentively at the console speaker.

_*"Have you finished your task?"*_

"No sir! Soon, sir."

_*"I see. And have you spoken with my slave while you've worked?"*_

The 'copter didn't so much as twitch. "No sir!"

_*"…I see. Tell me, Vortex. Do you know how sensitive my appendages are?"*_

His spark sank down to his knees. The Autobot was gasping softly as the tentacles relaxed, allowing him to stand on his own. They still spiraled in and out of his tap, but Vortex could see how the mech had braced his elbows on the wall, hands fisted against his face to muffle any noises that tried to escape as he was violated. The tentacles had to be sensitive to mechhandle the Autobot's tap gently enough not to damage anything, but Vortex hadn't thought about them beyond that.

"No sir," the 'copter said quietly.

_*"Your vocalizer has been running away from you."*_ The tentacle around his throat squeezed pointedly. It wrapped directly over his vocalizer's housing. The vibrations must have been pretty slagging obvious. _*"Are the consoles so interesting you must speak to them?"*_

His spark descended into the Pit. "…no. Sir. I." What the frag could he say to that? He'd lied. He'd lied to Overlord. Frag his life.

_*"Mhmm. You know, Vortex, I seem to remember giving you several __**sets**__ of orders you've now disobeyed."*_ Not lying to his officer. Not speaking to his officer's pet Autobot slave. There were probably more that Vortex didn't remember and would manufacture on his own just so he could apologize in sufficiently abject detail later. _*"Even my slave obeys me better than that. Perhaps some time as his servant will allow you to rethink your poor decisions."*_ The Combaticon sat at attention in his chair, every cable taut with horror. _*"Consider yourself demoted for the foreseeable future. Fortress Maximus is your new superior officer. Understood?"*_

He understood that his life was made of humiliation so intense it made his tanks churn. "Yes sir, Overlord sir," he said hoarsely, because somewhere on this ship a massive fist held a scrap of plastic that made his knees weak. The idea of not being able to earn it sent his rotor blades clattering against the chair back.

The connection cut, and Vortex sat for a moment more just staring blindly at the console screens. Then he mechanically rose to turn and walk across the room.

The Autobot was breathing deeply, trying to expel heated air as he recovered from the tentacles slowly slithering down his thighs. Vortex's approach got a cautious glare. That turned to incredulous staring as the 'copter snapped to military correct attention before him.

"Fortress Maximus sir," he forced out, snarling the words, "I am yours to command."

* * *

** [* * * * *]**


	8. Pt 8

**Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 8

**Warning: **The D.J.D., Cassetticons, consent issues, kinks, slavery, and dolphins. Also spoiler alert for MTMTE #16.

**Rating: ** PG-13, probably.

**Continuity: **IDW & G1

**Characters: **Vos, Helex, Tarn, Kaon, Tesarus, Nautilator, Soundwave, Frenzy, Rumble, Ambulon, Rung, Blast Off, Brainstorm, Chromedome, Prowl, Jazz

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **A couple reactions, two requests, and a thought.

**[ * * * * *] **

* * *

**center[* * * * *]**

_D.J.D. - "Soundwave"_

**[* * * * *]**/center

* * *

The sound Vos made was not natural.

Helex barely looked up. "Hmm? Is Nautilator's ship docked here?"

Oh, Primus, _Nautilator_. Decepticon of the sexy voice and fearless roleplaying. His name was the magic word to summon Tesarus out of nowhere. "Oh yeah, please tell me he's here!" The living grinder hustled over to peer over their scientist's shoulder at the personnel list for Redrix Station. "**Warg**."

Now, that just wasn't right. Helex turned to give his fellow titan a funny look for the odd honking noise. That wasn't a _'mech with hot voice'_ excited noise. That was _'suckerpunched by a gestalt ow ow'_ noise. "What?" Tesarus all but enveloped their far more slender teammate as the two bent over the console, jabbering in low voices, and Helex frowned. "What's gotten into you two?"

Tesarus seemed to be having trouble drawing in a deep enough ventilation to do anything but wheeze, but his optical structure glittered. Vos glanced around the larger Decepticon's shoulder to meet Helex's optics - and giggled.

Speaking of unnatural sounds.

"Okay, that's it." Helex heaved himself out of his seat and lumbered over. "'fess up, you guys. What's going on?"

Vos, a slim pole of a mech practically vibrating with sudden excitement, pointed at the screen. Tesarus wasn't much better, although he made noise instead of bouncing on his heels like Vos was. Little grinding noises kept coming from his midriff.

Helex didn't pay it much mind, since it seemed that his fuel pump had decided to relocate itself across the room. Look at it skip on its merry way. "**Tarn!**"

The _Peaceful Tyranny_ would have rocked on its landing gear if they hadn't been docked in, well, space. No landing gear, duh. But Kaon did stumble back a step as he entered the bridge, and Tarn heard Helex well enough without the aid of the ship's intercom.

Which the leader of the D.J.D. chose to use instead of yelling his head off like a certain lesser minion just had. *"I believe I expressed a wish to not be disturbed."*

"I call dibs on the washracks!" Tesarus ran for the door, Vos on his heels, and Kaon dove to the side to clear the way. "Last one there has to wax my back!"

Fraggit, if he didn't get there before Kaon, he'd be stuck waxing everyone. If, that was, Tarn's growling disapproval didn't murder him via the intercom. That 'wish' have been more along the lines of an order. "Uh, yeah, but Tarn," Helex swallowed, trying to loosen his abruptly constricted vocalizer, "Soundwave is here." He paused, but there was only silence. Slightly unnerved, he added, "On the station. Right now."

In other words, boss, they needed to get their afts shined up and out there as of _yesterday_, because _Soundwave_ was within reach. Soundwave. Had that transmitted clearly? Soundwave! Right hand mech of Lord Megatron himself since _the start of the revolution._ Loyalty personified. Role model of duty. Soundwave? Hello? Was this sounding familiar?

"Soundwave?" Kaon yelped.

Oh, thank Primus. The universe was still sane. Helex was actually rather relieved by Kaon nearly tripping over his own feet, because Tarn's total lack of appropriate reaction was alarming him a bit. Why was Tarn not ordering them to lock up the Pet and set the cleaning drones on _'blitzkrieg'_?

The blind electrical mech sprinted forward, hands flying over the console as he jacked in and started forcing override codes down station security's throat. Clearance! They needed clearance right now! "How did I miss that?! What ship did he come in on? How long has he been station-side? Does he have a departure schedule yet?"

*"I'm aware of Soundwave's presence, Helex. My orders still stand."* Tarn's voice lowered to a grave tone more felt than heard, even through the intercom. How the mech managed that was a mystery only he knew. Vos told the others their leader had inserted miniature speakers into their frames while they recharged, but Kaon swore the sadistic mech was just messing with their heads. *"Understood?"*

Wait, Soundwave was a docking tube and half a station away, and Tarn wasn't booting them out of the way to get out of the ship first? Helex needed to sanity-check the universe again. Sometime other than when his boss wasn't holding a verbal knife to vital systems, however. Helex would question the tank's sanity at a time other than, well, right now. He did like living, after all. No more disturbances, sir yes sir, Tarn, sir.

"Uh, sure. Understood, Tarn." Rattled and uneasy, the walking smelter let the connection close and blinked at nothing. "So I guess he doesn't want to go with us?"

"His loss," Kaon muttered, missing optics searching the station logs more efficiently than actual sight allowed most communication mechs. With the obvious exception of Soundwave, of course, because Soundwave could kick aft on the battlefield, infiltrate a sealed room, and hack a mainframe with three limbs missing and his broadcasting equipment disabled. Because - because was _Soundwave_.

"Rust and skidmarks, but how're we going to do this without Tarn?" Helex suddenly thought aloud, imagining the levels of awkward that could occur.

Random Decepticons didn't just walk up and introduce themselves to high-ranking officers, especially the blasted _Third-in-Command_ of the entire Decepticon faction. That would have been like Nautilator walking up and smacking Tarn on the aft. Death with a garnish of screaming agony would result. Possible salad of a mech's own shredded parts force-fed before the main course.

(Well...technically, Nautilator had never done that. He'd pinched Tarn's aft, but there were allowances for extenuating circumstances at the time. There'd been a bet. And a table. Tarn had been bent over it at the time, playing the part of a good Decepticon unaware of Lord Megatron's sudden mischievous mood. Regardless of how it'd come about, it wasn't something Nautilator would have dared to do without copious amount of coaxing on the D.J.D.'s part.)

Being Tarn-less left the rest of the team floundering for a means of introduction. They were in a prominent unit under Lord Megatron's direct command, but only Tarn was a commissioned officer. The rest of them were glorified, if extremely loyal, soldiers.

Helex frowned and pinched between his optics as he thought the problem over. "We kind of need him. He's all..." Big hands gestured, trying to convey Tarn's Tarn-ness. All the confidence and leadership they required conveniently in one tank package. "Smooth."

That silky voice. That purring engine. The intense aura of threat that implied not sticking around to listen could result in instant death. Or lingering death. Death in general, really. The glaring purple mask was sort of mesmerizing, too.

Oh, and the rank. Tarn had the rank.

...come to think of it, Tarn wasn't much of a benefit when it came to talking to regular mechs. Outside discussing the Decepticon Cause and killing anyone who crossed Lord Megatron's will, their leader wasn't all that an accomplished a conversationalist. He could soliloquy, of course, but Tarn's monologues were inflicted on List traitors for a reason.

Nautilator had him well in hand in the berth, but their little voice-fetish berth-warmer put the rest of the group between himself and Tarn when it came to casual conversation. When a 'Con preferred miming small talk with Vos over talking with Tarn, that probably said a lot about Tarn's inability to stoop to the level of normal people.

Kaon easily followed Helex's downward spiral of thought. "We'll make do." The blind mech stiffened. "Aw, scrap."

That was a disappointed look if Helex had ever seen one. "What?"

A small fist came down on the console. "Official meetings. Soundwave's booked solid for meetings right up until he departs in three days. I mean **solid**." Electrical coils sparked and snapped irritably. Helex automatically took a step away. "It's got Official Business slapped all over it, too. I've got clearance codes for anything up to High Command, and I can't access the specific meeting agendas. Whomever he's meeting with, he's secured it against even me seeing."

Helex slumped. "Oh."

Wait.

"Could...okay, I know it's a long shot, but could he be meeting," the walking smelter's voice fell to a reverent whisper, "Lord Megatron?"

The sound Kaon made was not human. That was fortunate, since he was Cybertronian and had never been to Earth. Had he ever gone, however, he might have recognized the sound he emitted as close to that of a stuck pig. It was sort of a gasped squeal.

"He's not listed on any of the docked ships!"

"He wouldn't be! Why would Lord Megatron meet Soundwave all the way out here if they wanted mechs to know where they were?"

"It's not likely. It's ridiculous." Kaon was already digging through the station's records again. "Primus, it makes a weird kind of sense."

"I **know**, right? Right. How can we find out for sure?"

"Frag if I know! I'm already looking, glitchhead!"

"Right, look, they'd have to leave the meeting rooms at **some** point," Helex said, strained and almost chewing on his lower lip as Kaon flailed at the console anew. "We stake out the corridor outside the meeting room. You have to be able to find **that**."

"How would we make standing around outside a room look casual?" the communication mech hissed at him. "'Why yes, Lord Megatron,'" his tone went nasal and mocking, "'the Decepticon Justice Division felt that the floor of this corridor doubted the Cause and needed a reminder of what loyalty is. Tesarus and I were just tromping up and down to put it in its place. Only loyal flooring in this corridor, Lord Megatron, you can be sure of that!'"

Yeah, that would be kind of amazingly stupid-looking to anyone who caught them doing it. Stupid-looking wasn't an option. They had to look casual. Smooth. Attractive and shiny, hopefully. Soundwave would doubtlessly know how flawless and impressive their individual achievements were, and it couldn't be all _that_ difficult to manage a greeting that'd extend into a longer conversation. Conversation happened every day! The D.J.D. could carry at least one a year, surely.

Argh, they'd already had their annual portion of normalcy this year. Nautilator got anxious if they talked about torture, traitors, and other business-related topics while in his company. The D.J.D. had to rehearse talking like 'normal' Decepticons for six weeks straight before abducting him for their yearly week of epic fragging. Fortunately for their libidos, he got pretty into their role-plays and didn't care that the conversations in between setting scenarios up was stilted and, well, heavily scripted.

For some reason, Helex really doubted that Soundwave wanted to talk about how cyberrats could hold off recharging for more than half a vorn. Soundwave likely had helped broadcast the nature program Kaon had gleaned that bit of their conversational script from. Soundwave could probably school them all on trivia.

No, no. They needed to _impress_ Soundwave. This was the mech who'd been there at the Council, freeing the newly-sworn Decepticons to destroy the city! Piddling nature facts were _not_ going to interest him in talking with them.

Whatever. Helex needed to drag the others into brainstorming ideas for this, but in the meantime, they really just needed to know who was in that meeting room with the Decepticon Third.

If it was really Lord Megatron, Helex might explode from sheer excitement.

Note to himself: empty his smelter before leaving the ship. There was nothing more embarrassing that a badly-timed loud _'glurp'_ from inside when his temperature gauge rose too quickly. Which it would, if Lord Megatron were onboard the station.

"We could find a few places on either end of the corridor outside the meeting room and just...walk very slowly between them?" Wow. And that lame suggestion from the Helex Department should just be shunted in the direction of the trash compactor.

Despite that fact, lacking any better ideas from the others, it was what they ended up doing. Although to be fair to their sense of the absurd, three of them camped out at the nearest bar while their fourth member walked the silly patrol route back and forth in front of the occupied meeting room. At least, they thought it was occupied. It was scheduled to be occupied, but nobody had seen anyone going in or out.

Nobody who responded to being threatened by four menacing Decepticon Justice Division members, anyway, and they'd grabbed about twelve random 'Cons so far to check that they weren't staking out an empty room. Their interrogations were getting increasingly desperate, not to mention drunken. The _Peaceful Tyranny_ was only scheduled to be docked for 10 hours more. Tarn, bizarre as he was behaving right now, probably wasn't going to extend that no matter how his crew reaaaaaaally wanted to meet Soundwave. And talk with him, and stare at him adoringly, and kind of hint at that they were all available for more than lousy conversation.

Seriously. _Soundwave_. One of the founders of the Decepticon faction. The one who'd helped Lord Megatron fine-tune his words into the final draft of the Decepticon Cause itself. It wasn't like they worshiped the ground he stood on, but they certainly wouldn't mind worshiping his body to show their admiration.

They sat at the little round table nearest to the door so they could see the corridor Tesarur was patrolling, and Kaon's optics were disturbingly dreamy as they talked about the Decepticon Third. And Kaon didn't even have optics. _That_ was how much he idolized Soundwave. And while, admittedly, he had the worst case of hero worship of all of them, the rest of them weren't too far off that.

By the time it was Tesarus' turn for the pseudo-patrol, they'd passed the point where they needed the drinks for courage. They were sucking them down for comfort, to be honest. The table would have been full of empties if the bartender weren't so attentive. That, and Helex's arms took up most of the space around the table. They'd started stacking empty glasses on the next table over.

10 hours until departure. Helex had never resented Tarn more in his life.

"He's never coming out," Kaon muttered into his fifth glass of some evil concoction the locals considered a specialty. "We're wasting our time here when we could be taking the shuttle over to the next system over to chase Nautilator around his captain."

Helex grinned and pillowed the side of his helm on one fist. "That was fun." He was on his ninth glass of the same vile brew. Everything was more fun at the moment than it actually was, but it _had_ been fun playing Dodge The Captain. The last time the D.J.D. made a booty call on their favorite frag toy, they'd made the game up on the spot, mostly because Nautilator had kind of still been on duty when they showed up.

Kaon gave it some thought before deciding, "I don't think he liked it so much."

Neither had Snap Trap. The captain had been peeved enough to yank Nautilator up short. Not in front of Tarn, of course, because Snap Trap knew enough to be scared for his life around the D.J.D., but Nautilator had gotten slapped with scutwork punishment duty for being unable to keep his personal affairs out of his duty shifts.

The Decepticon Justice Division had spent seven months wondering what they'd done to get their supply of naughty, dirty-talk calls cut off cold. When Kaon finally wheedled Nautilator into talking to them again, they'd gotten yelled at by him. In Megatron's voice. That hadn't been much fun. The good news was that Nautilator had readily agreed to take out his ire at them in some, ahem, disciplinary acts rarely employed by Decepticon officers of decent standing.

"Yeah, probably not a good idea to do that again," Helex agreed. "I wanna get laid again sometime in the next century, y'know?"

Vos warbled-hissed into his own drink. The scientist looked frankly depressed at this point. He'd practically deflated upon finding out that Tarn wasn't accompanying them. He didn't hold much hope that they could attract Soundwave's attention on their own, it seemed.

"We're not that bad," Kaon muttered back defensively. He straightened self-consciously, flicking back his electrical coils. Helex flinched when one bumped his arm with a _ktz-ZAP_. "Looks aren't everything."

Said the blind mech. Another warble-hiss in Primal Vernacular, and both Vos' teammates slumped. It was hard to argue that. They were, uh, rather lacking in social skills.

A fact proven in spades when Tesarus came out of the corridor they were staking out - escorting Rumble and Frenzy. Well, more like hovering over them. It could be said that he was fussing nervously, except that when a giant walking shredder typically minced those who badmouthed him, nobody said anything about how he wrung his hands worriedly. They pretended not to see anything.

The few Decepticons who'd dared hang around the bar after the D.J.D. had taken over got one look at the hand-wringing and wildly glittering X-optic. Suddenly, there were seats available everywhere. Empty seats as far as the optic could see. Seats for everyone!

What a fantastic coincidence, because the current seating arrangements weren't working out so well. Vos had just fallen off of his chair, knocking his chin on the tabletop, and Kaon went over backward when Helex upset the table surging to his feet without thinking. The blind mech hit the floor at about the same time Vos did, and a moment later Helex's mind caught up with how the chair legs caught his ankle joints, and then the floor caught him square in the face as he tripped and fell on top of his two teammates.

After a moment, the table finished rolling around and tipped over to land on top of the faintly groaning pile.

The Decepticon Justice Division, folks: able to take out rogue Phase Sixers without injury, but unable to properly stand up from a chair. There would have been a moment of silence for the Decepticon faction's collapsed dignity, but Frenzy and Rumble were laughing too hard to have respected it.

Rumble. Frenzy.

Rumble and Frenzy.

Rumble _and Frenzy_.

_Rumble and Frenzy._

They had been there for Lord Megatron's initial stand against the Senate. They had been involved since the first fight! Rumble had _started_ the fight that freed Lord Megatron from arrest. They'd been with him throughout hiding in Kaon's underground. Forget _joining_ Megatron's Cause (no disrespect intended to Soundwave, of course) - the duo had worked with him from the mines onward. They'd been there and supported him the entire way. They'd accepted reformatting into Cassetticons at Lord Megatron's command because of their loyalty, and they'd served him faithfully ever since. They _were_ the foundation of the Decepticon Empire!

And they were walking! Toward! The bar! This bar! The one Helex was in! Well, it was more like they were strutting, little bodies proud as they showed off for the three dumbstruck Decepticons staring at them from a pile on the floor.

Helex reached for coherency and got mostly the urge to shriek in elation.

*"Somebody **say** something!"* Tesarus wailed over the unit frequency. The grinder fluttered about behind the swaggering Cassettes helplessly searching for something to say, but obviously nothing was coming to him.

*"Can't say anything,"* Kaon said, sounding distinctly breathless. *"Squashed. Helex. Move."

"Oops." The much larger Decepticon scrambled back to his feet and offered his squished teammates a hand up. He felt gigantic, but it didn't make him feel confident as usual. He felt cumbersome. The Cassetticons didn't even reach _knee-height_ on him.

Vos, true to his sleek frametype, gracefully rose to his feet and strode to meet the legendary duo. Tesarus looked vastly relieved. Gesturing at the empty bar garnered nothing but strange looks at the scientist, however.

"Vos only speaks the Primal Vernacular," Kaon put in as Helex pulled the blind mech upright and dusted him off. So much for that painstaking detailing before they'd left the ship. When was the last time the bartender had bothered cleaning the floor, here? "What he's trying to say is that we'd be honored if you would join us."

*"If you don't fetch them a drink immediately,"* the blind mech said over internal comm. in an ugly voice completely at odds with the mild smile he wore, *"I will be forced to do it myself. Unless you want us to look like total fools because I trip over another chair on my way to the bar, **somebody else** get their order. Right now!"*

"What strikes your fancy?" Tesarus said, obviously before he thought. The two tiny Decepticons sauntering in front of him stopped dead. Rumble and Frenzy gave each other a speaking look before turned to sweep the living grinder with speculative gazes. "Uh, I mean - that came out wrong!"

"What's your pleasure?" Helex interrupted, wincing.

Kaon twitched. What? He'd heard it once on an old vidshow set in a bar. Didn't people actually say that?

Apparently things said on old vidshows were not applicable to real life. The duo turned to evaluate him next, sweeping slow and lewd looks up his frame in a way that dragged flashes of hot and cold across his systems. It suddenly occurred to him that, taken wrong, he might have just propositioned them.

"On the bar - I meant at. At. **At** the bar!"

That really didn't salvage the situation any. Two small visors tilted to look at the bar, then glanced back to the towering smelter like they were sizing him up. The Cassetticons' faces had surpassed cocky at some point and nose-dived straight into an _'Oh, really?'_ smug fragger expressions. A muffled gurgle came from Helex's smelter in response as his internal temperature skyrocketed. Had he really just implied that they - on the bar -

Hello, totally inappropriate mental images. Come right on in and plaster all over everything.

It was suddenly very important he stand behind Kaon. Kaon had a handle on things, while Helex was just sort of grabbing at nothing as the last whisps of control flittered away.

Except that Kaon's smile had taken on a decidedly panicked edge. "What…er, yes. What my associate **meant** to say is that we'd be happy to buy you a drink." Or five. Eight. However many they wanted. Because anything that got two of Lord Megatron's original Decepticons to sit down with them was worth any amount of shanix.

"Well," Rumble drew out, apparently just to watch four of the most dangerous Decepticons in the faction squirm eagerly, "since you're payin'…"

"Be dumb to pass that up," Frenzy finished for him once Vos and Helex's optics had gotten hopeful enough. Tesarus made a stifled sound of glee behind the two small mechs. "Gimme a Slipped Socket with a twist."

"Rock Solid, for me."

Vos took off for the bar so fast the Cassettes took a step back warily, but the other three fell all over themselves - not physically this time, thank Primus for their dregs of dignity - to usher the duo to chairs. Hastily righted chairs. Around a bigger table than before, because Vos came back bearing drinks for everyone and two each for Rumble and Frenzy. Tesarus and Helex let their two shorter, less hefty unitmates elbow them aside without protest. They even 'accidentally' took up more than their fair share of room at the table so that Vos and Kaon had to sit that much closer to the two Cassettes.

*"If anyone catches their optics, we'd all pitching in to make it happen. Share the details later?"*

*"Agreed!"*

*"I'm setting up a sensor cache now, just in case."*

*"Getting ahead of yourself, much? Cool your jets. We don't even know if they're interested!"*

Vos snorted over internal comm., which seemed logically improbable but came through clearly. His opinion on the look the Cassettes had given them was that the D.J.D. might just get lucky. However, had any of them bothered to clean out their bunks before they left the ship? His was a mess of weaponry at the moment.

*"…frag."*

*"I've got my sharpening kit spread out everywhere in mine."*

*"Wait, wait. If we seriously make this happen, we can set up in Tarn's quarters. I don't care what kinda mood he was in when we left; you **know** he'll drop everything if we bring **Frenzy** and **Rumble** onboard!"* And probably demand a turn as well.

Tarn did have the largest berth, however. His quarters weren't a chaos of living, either. It'd likely make a better impression if they took the Cassette's there instead of their own, less generously-sized bunks. That could turn out really awesome (orgy!) or spectacularly bad. Frag, it was the Nautilator gamble all over again. Although that had paid off in the end, it'd been nerve-wracking waiting for judgment. None of them had any modesty when it came to interfacing, not after everything they'd gone through and done together, but that didn't mean Frenzy or Rumble were that open to having an audience.

They really were getting ahead of themselves.

Frenzy took a long drink from his glass. "Ah!" Wiping his hand across his mouth, he grinned slyly. "Used to order a couple of these when we got enough shanix back in the mines. Nothing washed the dirt outta your throat better than one of these!"

Rumble finished his own drink and reached for the second one, shaking his head at his brother. "Slagger, we never had the shanix for these. Ordered 'em anyway," he said out of the side of his mouth to Kaon, who leaned in to hear. "Kinda went over our credit limit a few times getting fendered on - " The whole table froze, not even daring to ex-vent as he paused. Frenzy smirked behind his glass, but Rumble shook his head and went to take a sip from the new glass. "Aww, you guys don't wanna hear it."

"Yeah, just old drinking stories."

"From the mines."

"Old times."

"Waaaaay boring," they drawled, wearing identical innocent expressions.

"Habringlefardersnay," Tesarus objected. It wasn't the most eloquent objection ever raised, but it summed up the D.J.D.'s opinion quite well. Mining stories, from the mine where _Lord Megatron_ had worked. Yes, please and thank you, tell them more!

"No, really, we'd love to hear about it!" Helex subtly smacked Tesarus across the back of the head to restart whatever had evidently stopped working in there. The two titans leaned on the table and stared hopefully down at the small Cassettes. "Where was the bar you went to?"

"Did Lord Megatron ever join you?"

Rumble shrugged carelessly. "Just a couple times, but who wants to listen to us babble?"

"We're just Cassettes."

"Nobody gives a slag about the shorties."

"'Shorties'?!" Even Vos managed an indignant look at that, through body language more than a scowl. Helex slammed a hand down on the table and frowned ferociously. "Who's called you that? Who would **dare**?"

"Just give me names," Tesarus demanded, and his grinder whirred vicious threat. "They'll never do it again."

Kaon deliberately laid a hand on Rumble's nearest arm. "Who could possibly believe such blatant functionalist propaganda? You are heroes of the Empire. You are an example to us all with your dedication, strength, and courage. Your loyalty is legendary and an inspiration to every Decepticon who calls himself a believer in the Cause." With every sentence, the two Cassetticons sat straighter in their chairs, armor puffing as the praise was heaped upon them. As they rightly deserved! "If we judged dedication and worth by height instead of ability, would I then be judged by my missing optics instead of what that blindness allows me to do?"

An unhappy grinder underscored Tesarus taking up the topic. "I get called fat, but not more than once."

"Heh, woo! I bet!" Frenzy lifted his second glass, and the walking grinder hurried to clink his own against it in a toast. "Yeah, we get lotsa slag for our size, but not once mechs see us on the battlefield. Maybe 'cause we made a few examples, if you know what I mean."

"Pancaked 'em," Rumble agreed, transforming his arms to let Kaon admire the pile-drivers. With his fingers, of course, because station security only had one camera installed in this bar, and the lighting didn't allow for a close view of the Cassette's weapons. Not as close and appreciative as fingers allowed for, anyway.

Yes, Kaon was taking shameless advantage of his handicap. The others envied him that. Vos was giving Frenzy his most suggestive look, hoping the other Cassette would decide to show off his drills and let him stroke the threads to show off just how nimble his fingers were, but no such luck. The small mech seemed intent on draining his second glass.

Helex took the kick to his shin to mean that he should go fetch another round for the Cassetticons. The four D.J.D. members had barely touched their own drinks, too busy watching and listening to the notorious twins. He lumbered to his feet to obey.

"Ah, just a quick question," Kaon interjected, and maybe he was sitting on the edge of his chair now, but that would only be noticeable if his thigh brushed against Rumble's. More than it already was, anyway. "Has Soundwave's meetings gone well? We've been curious about," who exactly was locked in those high-security meeting rooms, was it Lord Megatron, _please say it was Lord Megatron_, "how they've been progressing."

"What, that scrap? Soundwave finished that hours ago. How frag can you **not** know he's - " Rumble nudged Frenzy and grinned when his brother stopped talking. Frenzy's annoyed glare lightened into a pleased smirk. "Ohh. Were you waiting for **us**?"

"Of course we were," Helex said with a wide smile that didn't hint at all that he was lying his aft off. Oo, it would have been a tough call if they'd known there was a choice between lying in wait for Soundwave or his Cassettes!

*"How would we know what?"* Tesarus asked over the unit frequency. *"Was Soundwave walking around the station the whole time we've been parked here?"*

*"How the frag would I have missed that?! Ugh. Doesn't matter. We're here now."* Oh well, they'd gotten a good bargain in the end. There was actual conversation happening. Kaon kept his smile and leaned just a touch further into Rumble as Helex returned with the next round of drinks. "That's good. Soundwave's efficiency is admirable. So, about those stories..?"

By about the fifth round of drinks, Frenzy had transformed his arms, too. He even let Vos pet the drills and Tesarus thumb the tips, but his turn at telling the story of a drunken night out with Lord Megatron never faltered. Rumble had transformed his arms back at that point, but he didn't seemed to notice that Kaon was still rubbing a hand up and down his forearm. The blind mech steadily pressed against his side, ever-so-casually draping an arm across the back of the chair in order to lean down to Rumble's level.

*"Are you going to make a move anytime tonight? There's only five more hours until our departure window!"* Helex urged him on. Frenzy was still talking, but Rumble had lapsed into grinning wildly and nodding along. The Cassettes' drinking had slowed down, but they were small mechs and the bar used tall glasses.

*"I really don't know if I'm overcharged enough for this,"* Kaon said back nervously. *"Alright. Just…wish me luck."*

*"Don't screw this up, or I'm pouring melted slag on you while you recharge!"*

*"Sit on a missile and rotate!"* Resetting his vocalizer, the blind Decepticon lowered his head down beside Rumble's audio as he traced one forefinger around one of the Cassette's back-mounted barrels. Helex pretended he wasn't eavesdropping like mad. "So…I thought we might move this party elsewhere? Somewhere more private." The last word was loaded with every scrap of innuendo Kaon could manage, and still Rumble just shrugged.

"Pretty private here." The bar was deserted. Even the bartender looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. "Nobody around. You want a proper shindig, you gotta find the sleaziest joint this side of the solar panels. We went there a couple nights ago," the tiny mech puffed up proudly, "and drank half the station staff under the tables! Now **that** was fun!"

So much for making a discreet offer. "This isn't exactly the location for the kind of party I have in mind," Kaon said bluntly, still keeping his voice low. "I was thinking more along the lines of room where I can scream your name without station security arresting us for public indecency." He gave his slowest, most seductive smile as he felt Rumble turn his head to look at him. "Your place or mine?"

"Pffft, ahahaha!"

Uh, okay. A burst of laughter full in the face really wasn't the response he'd been hoping for. Kaon's smile wilted around the edges. "Ah?"

"Look, no offense," Rumble gasped through the laughter. Next to him, Frenzy had stopped talking and turned to stare at them both, and Kaon sat back as Helex hissed a warning through the open commlink to him. "It's flatterin', don't get me wrong! But, yeah, you? Not my type."

Frenzy looked at Kaon, then back at the scientist practically sitting in his lap as if just noticing what was going on. He started laughing, too. Kaon flinched as if he'd been punched, and Vos stiffly drew away as the Cassette brayed and pounded the tabletop with a fist. "You? Naw, mech. Not even close!"

*"I am trying very hard not to get angry."* Kaon's voice was unnaturally level. *"Someone please tell me he's not making fun of us."*

Vos sourly commented on how personal preference was no limit to an amazing time in the berth. Nautilator didn't keep ending up on the _Peaceful Tyranny_ just because they abducted him, after all. But personal preferences were the right of any Decepticon and were to be respected.

The laughter, on the other hand, was overly rude.

Neither Cassette was known for their diplomacy, but it'd required a head denser than a lead brick to avoid noticing how both scientist and communication specialist sat back and grew icicles from their vents from the cold glares they turned on the duo. Rumble didn't look worried, however. He waved a hand lazily before putting his elbow down to rest his chin on while he leaned toward Kaon.

"Keh. Thanks for the offer an' all, but we kind of prefer the bigger frametypes." His optics wandered past the blind mech and ogled Helex. "If ya know what we mean."

Helex almost faceplanted on the table as Kaon practically teleported out of the way and shoved him forward. The anger evaporated like it'd never been, replaced with a strained, eager hyperactivity. "Have you met my teammate Helex?!" On the other side of the table, Vos slipped out the way just in time for Tesarus to take his seat and cozy up to Frenzy.

The Cassettes turned to give each other high-fives and leering grins, and the four other Decepticons felt like a pack of fools.

*"Fragging stupid witless - we should have noticed the way they look at you guys!"*

*"Hindsight is perfect. But, yeah. Kinda obvious what they're looking at."* Mostly the broad torsos and shoulders of mechs built for construction and repurposed for war. Helex and Tesarus were, to put it politely, hulking machines. They hadn't picked up on the Cassettes' hungry looks because, well, that whole size-sensitivity thing the Cassetticons had made it seem like pushing Kaon and Vos forward instead was probably the better idea.

Apparently not so when the little mechs had a size kink.

In Vos' opinion, this likely meant that Tarn would fall in the correct size range. Tarn's berth was that much more open, then.

"Muuuuch better," Frenzy said, looking way, way up at the X-optical structure peering down at him. And then leaning back in his chair with no attempt at subtlety in order to check out Tesaru's aft.

Meanwhile, Rumble had gulped down the last of his drink and almost crawled into Helex's lap. That would have been sexy, but the living smelter had no rusted idea what he should _do_. He smiled down at the tiny mech, but he was panicking over internal comm. *"How do I do this?! He's so small!"*

*"You kiss him!"* Kaon barked at him. The blind mech pushed the empty glass toward Vos, who took over drink-fetching duties without a hitch. The D.J.D. was a close-knit unit. Cooperation in the name of interfacing a couple of legendary badaft Decepticons was something they could do no problem.

Helex bent down toward the Cassette's reaching hands and tried not to show just how far out of his depth he was. His _head_ was almost as big as Rumble's _whole body_ was. Kissing? *"How do I do that?!"*

Kaon's electrical coils snapped irritably. *"Swear to Primus, if you mess this up I will electrocute you."*

*"But - "*

*"**Electrocute.**"*

At least Rumble seemed to know what he was doing. He grabbed for one of Helex's shoulder spikes and yanked to bring the larger mech closer. Not that a Cassette could move a mech Helex's size, but the huge Decepticon went with the pull anyway. "What say you get on your back and I climb you like you're a wall?" the tiny 'Con suggested with a lewd waggle of his visor.

"Uh…" Actually, that didn't sound like a lot of fun at all? Being on his back reminded Helex too much of when he transformed to flip his smelter to full power. The idea of being used for his function wasn't very appealing.

*"Helex!"* Anyone sitting as close to Kaon as Helex was could have felt the threatening build-up of charge.

"Alright," he said reluctantly, because it wasn't as if he had a clue where to start otherwise. He let the pushy Cassette prod him onto the table, which was uncomfortable and really not to meant to take this kind of weight. He wondered who'd pay for the damages if it collapsed under him.

Rumble climbed up onto his chest and grinned triumphantly, either not noticing or caring that Kaon and the bartender were staring. "This's more like it!" He walked up the prone mech's body.

That earned an uneasy tension instead of anticipation. The Cassette was small, but he was stomping his way up Helex's chest, and that wasn't sexy in the slightest. Well, Helex had to admit that Rumble was pretty fragging hot no matter from what angle he was viewed from - guhhh, walking history of the Empire, loyal and fierce and _nnnggh_ did he want a piece of that! - but he sort of hadn't realized he'd be stuck seeing Rumble from below.

Oh. Okay, yes, having the little mech slip down to straddle his chin was hot as his smelter. Helex could agree with _that_.

Rumble bent over his face to grab his antenna, however, and Helex couldn't stop one optic from twitching in discomfort. It wasn't that it hurt, precisely, but he didn't like having those jerked on. The Cassette hesitated, eyeing him strangely, but when he didn't say anything, Rumble rocked his hips forward and growled, "Hands where I can see 'em. Yeah. Like that. Next to your helm." The larger set of hands rested near Rumble's small feet on the table, fingers curling, and the Cassette smirked. "Don't touch me." The curling stopped, and Helex opened his hands. He didn't want to. He wanted to wrap his fingers around those narrow thighs and hold on. "Now, how's about you put that big tongue of yours to good use, huh?"

There was a bared interfaced panel being pressed to his lips. Teensy dimples and protrusions signaled where the Cassette's multiple ports were, even if he couldn't see them from this angle. He wasn't a terribly modest mech, but Helex still paused. Were they really going to do this in public? *"Kaon, I don't know about this…"*

*"Station security's steering fairly clear of this area. As long as the bartender doesn't call us up on charges, we should be fine."* Even without Tarn here to smooth things over with rank and implied bodily harm. *"Er, I hope you don't need shanix anytime soon. I'm going to give him a nice bribe to close early and leave us be."* The blind mech set off across the bar.

Right, that took care of Helex's main concern. He set to his task with a will.

His tongue was roughly the size of Rumble's leg. Finesse was not possible. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be necessary. Rumble was a vocal little thing, grinding out a groaned soundtrack to every broad swipe over his pelvic plating and poke by the tongue tip. The ports were eensy-weensy tiny pricks against Helex's chemical receptors, and every time he attempted to delicately tease them, he couldn't help but think the whole equipment array was kind of cute. It was a tiny mirror of his own array, microsized for the smaller frametype, and he couldn't manage to lick them one at a time. He had to lap at them in groups, or all at once in wide, hot swathes of his tongue that left drips of charge in the miniscule port receptors.

"Primus, yeah! Harder!" Rumble bucked into his tongue. His aft perched on Helex lower lip, and he refused to move it. When Helex tried to tuck his chin down to maybe suck on the tiny mech's whole pelvic area, the Cassette kicked the side of his helm. "Cut that out!" A yank on his antenna accompanied the order.

Helex frowned. "Can you…not do that?"

The hands on his antenna let go immediately. "Don't like it?"

"Well, um. Not really. No." He swallowed, and his tongue tasted like Cassetticon. It was a nice flavor. "At all, really."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Rumble frowned down at him and stood up. His thighs flexed, still thrusting a bit, and his interface array crackled softly with gathered charge. Helex licked his lips unconsciously when he saw the Cassette-scale ports at last; they glistened with his oral fluid, drying rapidly to a plastic sheen, and he just wanted to pin the bitty Decepticon down to experiment with how hard a tonguing the equipment could take. "Frag, I thought you were actin' funny."

"I didn't want to say anything," Helex mumbled. He was _so_ going to get zapped by Kaon for this.

The Cassetticon scowled. "Why not? Look, I like topping big guys. You're a big guy. I wanna ride your mouth like a skimmer, but c'**mon**. What the frag? If you're not into it, what **do** ya like?"

"I'm not - "

"Don't feed me a line of scrap! It ain't like I'm gonna run away from a frag just 'cause you said somethin'."

He wasn't? "But - "

Rumble's visor narrowed to an angry red line, and he dismounted Helex's chin. "If you're not gonna say whatcha like from me, then you can go 'face a door. I don't want another 'facing toy!"

Helex rolled up on to one arm and looked down at the tiny belligerent mech. "But I don't want to **be** an interface toy! That's the point!" Whoa, what kind of interface toys did Rumble have? That sounded hotter than it had any right to be, considering the current conversation.

"So, what, you want to cable in right away, or you want me to play with your ports some, or what?" The list was impatiently rattled off, but that probably had to do with the way Rumble's bared ports were still snapping tiny sparks of charge.

"No! Wait, how the frag could you take my cables? My input jack is the size of your entire - nevermind." Helex shook his head clear. "No, licking you like that was - good." Incredibly good. "I just…kinda want to hold you more. I don't like being stuck on my back like that." He squirmed a little. "Being controlled that way's kinda weird."

The Cassette's expression screwed up. "Huh? Wait, what? Seriously? That's it?" Helex reared back, optics wide as the tiny mech turned toward where Tesarus was still sitting in his chair, optics off as he - ohhh, so that's how a mech kissed a Cassetticon. That was surprisingly obvious. And sexy as the Pit. "Frenzs! Frenzy, quit gettin' it on and listen."

Frag, frag, frag. Kaon was going to _fry him alive_ for this! Helex glanced around wildly, hoping the electrical modded mech was far enough away that he could get a headstart when Rumble drop-kicked his chance at interfacing one of the Decepticon Empire's greatest heroes. The blind mech was still over by the bar, still.

"What?!" Frenzy snapped when Tesarus let up. "Busy, here!"

"I know! We gotta talk, quick."

With Tesarus' hands around him that way, the other Cassette could only be seen in the gaps between fingers. He looked happy to be in there. "Talk faster!"

*"Helex?"*

Helex met Tesarus optics and shook his head helplessly. He had no idea what was going on. The two Cassetticons had evidently switched to internal commlink for speed, and after a moment, Frenzy pushed up enough to look over Tesarus thumb at him. That was an evaluating gaze. It left tingles in its wake when the small mech swept it over him.

When it finished judging him, it turned to a short nod of approval, and Frenzy turned to give Rumble a questioning stare. Rumble shrugged back and gave his own version of the considering gaze to Tesarus.

The walking grinder blinked back curiously. "What's going on?"

"He's even got handlebars," Frenzy said in reply to something unheard. He stretched up to tap the tips of Tesarus' optical structure.

Rumble grinned slyly. "Whatcha say to me grabbing on to those," he jerked his chin to where his brother had touched, "riding your mouth so hard your teeth blunt, and not letting you move until I say so?"

Fans went from normal speed to rip-roaring fast. "I say please!" Enthusiasm was not something Tesarus lacked in.

Frenzy slipped out of the mech's hands and walked across the table toward where Helex still lay, half on his side. Rumble passed him halfway. The two Cassettes didn't even look at each other, too focused on their new partners to care.

Helex watched him coming with apprehension. "Um."

"Soooo. I'm game for anything that involves being under you." Frenzy's expression had a fraction of madness buried under the lust. He looked like Tesarus did on the battlefield when someone from the List tried to run for it. "Ooo, you've got another set of arms! Use 'em!"

It seemed like a good idea to nab the tiny mech with his smaller pair and pin him to the table. From the squirming and hot crackle of electricity from behind Frenzy's still-closed panel, it was an idea they both agreed on. Helex rolled to loom over the pint-sized Cassette, and little legs began kicking in a frenetic struggle that got Frenzy nowhere.

"This alright?" Helex asked as his smelter began to make glurbling noises.

"Aw, **scrap** yeah!" Frenzy gasped. He looked up at the giant Decepticon blotting out everything overhead, and his smile glittered as charge began spitting from his internal systems. Tiny body with nowhere for the massive build-up to go? Of course it'd show that way.

It transmitted easily, too. Helex knelt right there on the floor beside the table, dragging the small frame to the edge of the table in order to nudge his chin between legs thinner than his fingers. Frenzy kicked, and charge lit Helex's lips up with the pleasure he'd only felt as second-hand, surface energy while trying this with Rumble. Now his circuitry was primed and receptive, and he absolutely savored how every receptor on his mouth and running down his throat flared to life when he took a slow, testing lick. His tongue spread the little legs wide, and Frenzy yelled nonsense as he writhed against the flexible metal.

Twisting his helm to the side and closing his lips around Frenzy's body got a near scream. Helex paused, wondering if this wasn't -

"**Suck**, you rusted bumper-humper, or I'm gonna drill your - "

The rest of Frenzy's threat frizzed into static as the walking smelter obeyed.

The overload tasted like purest energy, and it was only a minor tactile build-up with the Cassette's panel still closed. Helex swallowed it down and worked his mouth around the sensation. Mmm. His hands tightened and relaxed on the Cassette almost cradled in them. So, so small. So delicious. He hadn't even touched the mech's ports, and he already knew he could spend the whole night trying to force his tongue into the receptors for a taste.

A weak bleat over the unit frequency dented his enjoyment. Kaon sounded shell-shocked. He must have just turned around from bribing the bartender. *"Oh…"*

*"Yeah, it's slagging hot!" Tesarus agreed from under Rumble's bouncing hips.

"It's not - well, yeah, it is. It's just that I found Soundwave."* Helex glanced up at the odd tone to the communication mech's voice. *"I just ran a security check of the _Peaceful Tyranny_, and…yeah. Found Soundwave."*

Vos made an inarticulate noise over the channel. Soundwave was onboard the ship?!

Instead of answer the barrage of questions the other three D.J.D. members started bombarding him with, Kaon sent a recorded packet to them. Helex planted his main set of hands beside Frenzy's head and leaned in to nuzzle the blissed-out Cassette even as he opened it.

*"**Warg**,"* Tesarus said on the frequency. Also with his mouth, which resulted in Rumble shrieking happily into overload.

Helex himself managed not to do more than tremble in response to what he was watching. That was not a use he'd ever thought of for the captain's chair aboard the _Peaceful Tyranny_, and he had the feeling he wouldn't be able to unthink it now that'd the thought was there. And while he _had_ known that Tarn was that flexible, he hadn't known Soundwave was into that. They totally needed to try that with Nautilator. Although the smaller Decepticon would likely have trouble hoisting Tarn's leg that high. Maybe if he rested it over his shoulder, and they helped him take the weight?

No wonder Tarn hadn't wanted to be disturbed, earlier.

A thickly-accented (language: Primal Arousacular) question from Vos was seconded by Helex. What _were_ they doing? He could see Tarn's throat vibrating in a familiar way, but Soundwave had buried his mask into the cabling and seemed to be vibrating right back.

*"Singing. They're…singing. A duet. A - yeah. A duet."* Kaon's voice had a strangely thin quality to it. *"I'm going to record and play this back later when we can all appreciate it. This is - trust me. This is musical porn."*

Helex couldn't imagine that, but then again, he'd couldn't have imagined having his tongue tip sucked on by Frenzy, either. His mental horizons were being broadened today. He really wanted to see what Soundwave did to Tarn in that chair, too. Some horizons needed to be broadened further.

*"Eeeeeeep,"* Kaon squeaked.

*"What? It's not like our mouths are really compatible."* Not that he had a problem with that. The darting flicks of Frenzy's tongue against the inside of his lips were nice, but the Cassette seemed to prefer being pinned down with a huge tongue opening his mouth until the jaw hinge strained.

*"Not that. I got busted,"* their comm. mech sighed, and he broadcasted another video packet.

Of Soundwave looking straight up into the security pick-up, visor narrow. _"Subordinates: lacking in manners. And training,"_ the Decepticon Third added, monotone voice cold. _"Communication tap detected. Perpetrator's designation: Kaon."_

Ouch. _Ouch._ It was one thing for Soundwave, of all mechs, to pick up on Kaon being a voyeur, but the comment on his skill level ground rust into an open wound.

_"He will…be…"_ Tarn arched and gasped, vents coming harsh and fast. _"Disciplined! Sir. I will make - ah! Sure of it, I assure you."_

_"Acknowledged."_ The impassive mask of a living legend turned back toward the chair and its occupant.

Kaon glumly slumped into a stool by the bar as the video packet ended. *"And that's when he pitched me out of the _Peaceful Tyranny_'s systems."*

There really wasn't much any of them could say to that. Kaon was in deep trouble. Not the fun kind of trouble, either. The best they could do was distract the miserable mech.

*"Think I can balance Rumble on my tongue?"* Tesarus ventured as he gave it a try.

Everyone looked. Well, not Frenzy because he was currently moaning as Helex finally succeeded in lapping open that tiny panel keeping him from the ports he wanted at, and technically Kaon was using the bar's security camera to see. But heads turned.

*"Yep, look at that."*

*"It's not that impressive,"* Kaon said grumpily.

*"Hey, it's harder than it looks!"*

Vos said that it looked easy enough. Rumble could use Tesarus' tongue as a stool.

*"Yeah, but he keeps moving."*

"Did this once with Megatron!" The Cassette put his head down and bucked his hips into the tongue between his legs. "Bit…bigger, though!"

That mental image. Oh.

The sound Vos made was not natural.

* * *

**center[* * * * *]**

Rung/Ambulon - "old equipment"

**[* * * * *]**/center

* * *

There was a thing

Ambulon didn't know how else to describe it. It wasn't so much a happening as a series of reactions to unknown circumstances. The stimulus wasn't always the same. The reaction sometimes differed. His facial plating could feel tight one time, and his knees shake slightly the next. His hands were rock-steady but his fuel pump raced, or his fingers might tingle with numb prickles while the rest of his systems flushed hot.

Even how he felt about the sensations changed. Sometimes he got irritated and refused to even think about it. It was hardly appropriate, after all. Other times, the faint whisps of memory swept him off into daydreams that had him smiling faintly. He stared out windows seeing nothing, mind peacefully blank, and scowled down into his ration as a thousand thoughts bombarded him at once.

Contextually, he'd given up trying to pin down when it happened. He could be in the medibay recalibrating Ratchet's - once Pharma's - complex hand joints and suddenly remember a lighter-than-air slide over plating that shouldn't have felt anything but instead felt it all. First Aid could pass him in the storage closet, EM field neutral, and it'd remind him that the little gossiper would dearly love to know who was retouching his paint these days. He'd seen how the former nurse eyed him. Sunstreaker sat down in the bar, and Ambulon had to leave before his flustered reaction to the artist gave him away.

Sunstreaker didn't even paint. Why the frag did he connect paintbrushes and Sunstreaker in his mind?

This thing had him twisted up inside. It had his processors linking unassociated details at the most embarrassing times. Ultra Magnus caught him dreamily smiling at nothing and requested he submit to a drug test. That was humiliating enough, but the executive officer's stiff apology for accusing him of doping was tendered in front of a small audience of patients in the medibay. And First Aid, of course, because the universe apparently couldn't drag Swerve in on short notice to serve as a ship-wide broadcasting system that day. So now most of the ship knew that he'd been drifting around looking like a lovesick fool.

The details, typical of First Aid's style of rumor mongering, had gone missing somewhere between medibay and bar. He'd been on break, for Primus' sake, not caught dawdling on duty! Even if the whole blasted ship felt a need to stick their faces in his business, they should at least get the facts about his attention to duty right. He was getting a _reputation_ he hadn't even earned!

Although there were times that Ambulon was sure he'd come to earn every bit of it. The way this thing recurred, eventually it was going to get him in trouble. Maybe? He wasn't sure, but he had a creeping certainty that it would. If there was no way to predict it, no way to tell how it'd affect him, then he couldn't act to counter it. He could only react.

Just the other day, he'd been on his knees prying some sort of ammo casing out from under the berth where Whirl had kicked it, and he'd had to get up to take a short walk. Ratchet had given him a knowing look. Ambulon had zipped on by him, circuitry-emittence clamped as close as possible, but his EM field had probably still stood out like a red light to the senior medic's sensitive equipment.

First Aid invited him to join him for more post-shift drinks now than in all the years they'd been stuck in the same fragging building complex back on Delphi. Ambulon refused every time, but he'd seen the gossipy medic hanging around outside his quarters a few times. Worse, he was fairly sure the horrid busybody had recruited other Autobots to tail him through the ship as well. It's gotten to the point that Ambulon was inventing new way to walk back to his quarters every day, just to spite the ex-nurse.

That was likely making the situation worse. First Aid liked mysteries.

How had Ambulon gone from being known as a straight-laced ward manager with a strut up his aft to - this?

Wait, that wasn't a fair question. He knew _how_. It was the fault of the thing. The thing had happened. The thing kept happening. It kept being a thing. It was a thing of many things, all of which defied clinical description.

In the part of him that tried to remain detached through the multitude of thing-related things, Ambulon gave it a name: tremor architecture. There was a thing, and Rung had planned it to the last detail. It was drawn out over the ward manager's armor, traced over sensitive edges, and mapped through the vulnerable metal of his protoform. The blueprint was imprinted in his mind and wavered across his EM field. His sensor network lit it in rippling waves.

The thing inside him, it was a structure. A carefully built tower constructed from the bare strutwork of need, cemented in place by a hot slurry of desire that lapped up the sides and solidified a bit more every time Rung built on what had come before. Curiosity supported it on the outside, and panels of freely-given consent illustrating every want inside.

Rung had designed and constructed this thing, and he smiled when the ward manager gave it a fancy name.

"Aren't you a psychotherapist?" Ambulon asked, optics troubled. "Isn't there a term for it?"

The smaller Autobot smoothed a hand over the ward manager's furrowed brows and nodded. He only smiled when Ambulon looking up at him gave him an inquiring look. That sweet smile shook Ambulon down to his tanks, but the structure stood. It vibrated and trembled, but Rung had built it flexible and strong. It was built to last no matter what was thrown at it.

But Rung never threw anything. When Ambulon went to him - or more rarely, when the slender orange mech knocked politely on his door - Rung always, always asked permission. He never entered Ambulon's closely-held personal space, either physically and mentally, unless he was made welcome. When he was sure his presence was anticipated instead of invasive, he would ease inside the strange, wonderful thing he'd mapped out through careful observation and cooperation. He checked the door lock, touched the walls, and climbed slowly up the many steps that'd led to whatever stage they were currently working on.

Sometimes, he climbed slowly, revisiting previous floors. No room could be fully explored, after all, so long as he brought some new decoration or rearranged some furniture.

"Again?" he murmured against Ambulon's lips, and the ward managerwhimpered assent as the warmth bloomed under the paintbrush. This was the first floor, the level where the two of them could stand as equals through the sanding, painting, and drying. More often than not, however, Rung pulled out a chair or guided him down to the floor, and the gliding, slick moisture of fresh paint sent Ambulon's body arching after the brush.

The tiny moving pinprick of pressure and long drying time of painting by hand required patience and a sturdy foundation. Not every painting session involved anything intimate, but when it did, the pleasure came in syrupy blooms across the surface of Ambulon's plating. It bubbled up and lingered, hot and warm at once. There was something comforting in a quiet, repetitive way in returning to the painting.

Rung didn't always venture to the next level, nor did the ward manager always invite anything further. It happened when it happened.

"Harder," Ambulon gasped on another day, bent forward over a desk with gentle fingers working into his ports. Too gentle, _achingly_ gentle, and Rung refused his demands while the pleasure swelled in gradual, building ripples that were the best torment a mech could writhe and beg under. The ward manager whined, trapped under the nearly nonexistent weight of a model ship balanced between his shoulders, but that was more than enough to keep him down when Rung had placed it there.

The psychotherapist spoke over his gasped demands, adding a new twist to what they'd already tried before. "You're quite a sight like this, you know," that professional, soft voice told him. "Your back has a bare quality to it rarely found in our race. The lack of doors or windows is novel. It suits you well." That was unexpected to hear. The Decepticons tapped for the gestalt programs had sacrificed their former frames and selves to the combiners they'd become. Ambulon's frame was efficient and sturdy, but to hear Rung describe it this way washed heat through the ward manager's chest. "It sets you apart for what you were, but you blend into the medical division quite well as what you are. It's almost a mark of your dedication, I think."

"I can see where you need to be repainted again. Have I told you how I enjoy that? Working with my hands is satisfying. I can see the progress made in a physical way I don't often get the opportunity to watch. I like to file away the old paint and dust it from your plating, but I like to see your natural colors as well. It's like glimpsing a secret beauty shared between friends." The words spilled over the prone mech in a cascade of surprising praise that Ambulon squirmed under. He wasn't used to someone _appreciating_ him like this. "Capturing every fleck of the old paint, wiping it away, and then covering the base coat with your preferred coloration appeals to me. Polishing you to a glistening shine is my pleasure, every time."

The model between his shoulders got a pat, which required removing three of Rung's fingers from what they'd been previously involved in. Ambulon jolted and moaned loudly, embarrassment consumed by the rough scrape of fingertips leaving him. The moan became a shuddering cry as they slipped back into his ports in deliberate, quick thrusts.

The psychotherapist's voice lowered to a throaty tone. "Yes, that's very nice. Even if I didn't find your frametype handsome, I'd find that almost beautiful. You're so responsive that there's a kind of artistry to making you react. How does it feel?"

It was a kind question. Rung's kindness extended to wishing for feedback on how he could change the internal architecture to make it different, better, and more polished. Consideration for his fellow Cybertronians taken to a more caring, intimate, lover-to-lover level.

Ambulon bit his lip and totally failed to shut off his vocalizer in time to stop the wanton groan of pleasure. "Harder!"

The demand was more like a plea this time. Rung pet the back of his thigh and denied him anyway: "No."

It wasn't his place to demand, not here or now. That was the agreement, and it made the thing inside Ambulon's chest squeeze tighter and tighter. Pleasure clawed at the base of his gut like a living creature trying to dig free. The charge flickered and rose in short bursts interspersed by long periods where the ward manager simply breathed. Breathed in the control of someone else, and breathed out his acceptance.

When the tight knot finally slipped free in a sharp snap of released charge, it shook him, seized him, and rolled waves of hard overload over his helplessly quivering body.

Afterward, Ambulon sat on the floor with the side of his helm pillowed against Rung's thigh, and a thin hand stroked him back into reality. "Feeling better?"

"Mmm."

The smile was heard, not seen. "I thought so."

"...should go."

"You don't have to." Rung ran his fingers over the drowsy mech's crest and chuckled when Ambulon mumbled an indistinct protest. The ward manager promptly turned his head to burrow into the smaller Autobot's lap. "I'm in no hurry."

"Hmmm." Inevitably, guilt for occupying the psychotherapist's time would drive the ward manager from the velvet-plush afterglow. For now, he rested with his optics offline and a small hand grounding him.

Rung hummed an old tune idly. The ship model they'd been using earlier was inspected closely for scrapes. There were none, of course. Ambulon was as respectful of the much-beloved models as Rung was of his body. Besides, when the old orange mech used an object to hold him down, the command was the part holding him down. Anything else used was just a prop. The symbolism did something to Ambulon's systems, that was all.

Anything more serious than a prop didn't fire the ex-Decepticon's systems the same way. Not the same way, and not at all in a good way.

They'd discovered that the hard way.

There were doors in the building Rung had built with locked doors. The psychotherapist trailed his fingers across them when he climbed past, acknowledging their presence, but he never tried the handles again. He'd been the one to help Ambulon close them tight shut and clearly label them with warnings for whomever might explore this strange structure after he left.

There were doors propped wide open whose thresholds he avoided stepping over.

"I'd like to," Ambulon said bluntly. He sat beside Rung at the bar. Nobody so much as looked at them twice. Ambulon strictly monitored his own body language to broadcast nothing but neutrality. Perhaps a faint friendly cast to his expression, if observers squinted. Whatever this thing was between him and the psychotherapist, Ambulon wouldn't let it ruin Rung's reputation the way it had his own.

Although the older mech hardly seemed concerned. He didn't even glance around to check if anyone was listening. No one was close enough, but Ambulon had been nervously checking the whole time since they'd sat down.

"I know you would," the psychotherapist said. He sipped from his drink and smiled at his companion. "I glad that you're comfortable enough to have said something, but as I told you before, it's not something I want to do."

Ambulon contained a wince. Yes, Rung had told him that. It'd been accompanied by a firm hand on his wrist preventing him from going any further, and a short lecture on asking permission. He'd been mortified. "I, ah. May I ask why, at least?"

"Is this an attempt to pressure me into complying with what you want instead of what I've stated is what **I** want?" Rung's voice stayed descriptively neutral.

Why, hello front door. Look how easily Rung could walk out of it.

Whatever this thing was, it was rooted firmly in Ambulon's mind. The psychotheraptist had sculpted it out of the ward manager's wants and desires, tailored it to Ambulon's needs, and built it to withstand even the shaking of the front door slamming behind him. Whether or not Rung visited it ever again, this thing was here to stay.

Funny, but up until the psychotherapist laid the foundations, Ambulon hadn't known there was anything inside him to build with.

He looked down at the drink his hands were clutching on the table in front of him. He didn't know precisely what this thing was. He could give it a fancy name and try to label all the parts, but that didn't make him any more knowledgeable about what it _was_. He had the feeling he was exploring it as much as Rung was, despite being part and parcel of the structure.

It was ruining his professional reputation.

It had destroyed his peace of mind.

It felt really, really good.

"I want to know why you won't let me return the, erm, favor, as it were," he said, careful as a blind mech walking an unknown corridor. "It feels strange to have trusted you with my body when you won't let me do more than kiss you back."

Rung stayed silent for a long minute. His lips turned down at the corners. Ambulon stole glances at him, trying to interpret what the small frown meant, but it seemed to be just the expression of someone thinking hard.

"What do you know about watches?" the orange mech said at last.

Well, that was an odd question to pull out of nowhere. "I'm not very good at keeping them," Ambulon replied, trying for a joke. "Pharma once rewarded me one for exemplary service, and I lost it in the snow outside the clinic somehow."

Rung's impressive optical ridges climbed high. "I...see. Are you aware of how the configuration of older models of interface hardware resembles clockwork?"

Again, the strange question caught him off-guard. "Ah - no, I'm sorry. It wasn't referred to in any of my - " The gears clicked behind his optics, which went wide. "- oh Primus. Well. Oh. I'm going to have to do some research."

Old, practically ancient orange hands patted the ward manager's forearm. Sometimes, Ambulon managed to somehow forget just how old Rung really was. Then again, there were times he literally could not remember the other mech's _name_. Age was not nearly as frustrating as fumbling the name of the mech who could make him muffle a full-throated scream by holding up a single, hushing finger at the moment of climax.

Fortunately, Run never seemed to hold anyone's failings against them. "It's not a commonly documented piece of equipment. I doubt even Ratchet has much you could read up on." Since Ambulon had just raised his arm in order to slap both hands over his face in sudden realization, Rung's black fingers slid down to his elbow naturally. The tweak of the joint at the end was _not_ natural, however, and the ward manager jumped in his seat at the pinch. It shot a pang of pleasure up his arm, spiced with the naughty fact that Rung had just done that _in public_. At the bar! They weren't even sitting at the relative privacy of a table!

Frag, but Ambulon's reputation was going straight to the smelter. He could hear his fans click on even over the ambient chatter of the bar. Somewhere in Ambulon's interior architecture, a door labeled _'Exhibitionism'_ abruptly appeared and cracked open just slightly. The smallest push would swing it wide open, he could tell.

He smacked his hands flat on the bar and swallowed a sound trying to bubble up his throat. "I'll, uh. Look into the matter. If, well. If you're not interested in letting me learn hands-on..?"

That sounded hopeful even to his own audios. Disappointed optics met his optics, however, and Rung sighed. The shorter Autobot looked away, drawing his hand back. Ambulon almost reached toward him, almost wanted to return the touch with a similar gesture, but a glance around the bar spotted First Aid staring in his direction idly. Right. Any sort of public display of affection, however muted, was right out.

He reset his vocalizer uncomfortably and straightened in his seat. "No?"

"I enjoy what we do together," Rung said as he finished his drink and stood up in one graceful move. "It is not that I do not trust you, Ambulon. It is a personal comfort level that you're pushing me on, and while I believe you will find the answer to your question in your research, I do ask that you respect my boundaries whatever you find. Questions are welcome, but not when my answers are not listened to."

"Of...of course." Chastised, the taller mech ducked his head. He felt like a medtech who'd just failed the hygiene standards for a laboratory.

"Good night, Ambulon. I'll speak with you later."

"Yes. I mean, I - yes. Good night."

The ward manager watched him walk away unhurriedly through the bar, and he felt strange. He should have known better than to press the slender orange mech like that. Run stopped to speak with Whirl and Skids, and the thing of many layers in Ambulon's chest constricted. It swayed and trembled in time to the pulse of his troubled spark, but it stayed standing. The hands that'd guided its construction were those of a master, after all.

Later, First Aid asked him about the odd, conflicted smile he'd been wearing. Ambulon had no answer.

Only that there was a thing, and he had it bad.

* * *

**center[* * * * *]**

_ "slave coding"_

**[* * * * *]**/center

* * *

It was officially the worst day of Blast Off's life.

Frag the spark box or the Detention Centre. Who cared about Starscream and the forced gestalt spark merge? Megatron who and the loyalty programming what?

No, this was the worst day by far. Yesterday had been a close second, but today? Today took the oil.

There was a high-pitched squeal. Blast Off winced and ducked his head, _knowing_ he wasn't being chastised for his thoughts but unable to stop the automated program backlash. "I apologize, Master." There was another squeal and a splash. Programming kicked the shuttle in the back of the cortex, and he flinched toward the sand of the beach in a groveling bow that did his abraded forearms no good. In his own mind, he deserved the gritty pain. "Please, Lord and Master, forgive your humble servant."

Slave drones had no opinions; there was only black and white , and he had to stay in the white. That meant his mechanical mind powered through every thought he held and disregarded them in a relentless search for orders, approval, and obedience to those two essentials to his new life. He knew the chirping clicks from the water weren't expressing disapproval his thoughts. He couldn't exactly understand what they _were_ expressing, but disapproval wasn't likely. It didn't matter, however. The code rooted under his conscious mind sucked awareness of his own thoughts down to pass judgment on them. Since he was aware that what he was thinking would be disapproved of by an owner, the coding kicked in to punish him.

It was awful. He could feel it happen. He could think about how he hated it. But then he promptly fell over himself in fear of the punishment he'd inflict on himself for that hatred. The only way to appease the coding was to cower in apology.

He knew programming imperatives. The loyalty software Shockwave and Starscream had forced onto all the Combaticons was a constant, lurking watchdog program on the combiner team's thoughts and behavior. It made them do certain things, mostly just involving instant, unquestioning obedience to Lord Megatron's will. That was annoying, but all in all, it wasn't a bad deal. Rejoining the Decepticons was at least sensible.

So bowing before the Supreme Commander? Not pleasant at times, but soldiers in the Decepticon ranks were generally expected to at least salute. Obedience and respect being enforced by loyalty programming instead of training wasn't that bad. The compulsion to obey could be forgotten in the habit of a soldier trained to follow orders.

This was not that kind of programming imperative. Lord Megatron didn't want drones for soldiers, after all.

The splashing became demanding. Blast Off was moving before he entirely knew why, the coding knocking his conscious mind off its feet and substituting a drone's automated obedience. Still on his knees, the massive shuttleformer shuffled half into the water without regard for how the stirred water immediately filled his knee joints with silt. It wasn't like he wasn't already covered in salt crusts and sand from his initial plunge into the shallows. Repeated immersion wasn't doing him any good, but it wasn't hurting him further.

He didn't want to do this, but he did. The coding made him anxious to obey.

Glum but knowing he couldn't fight, he lowered his hands into the water. "Is this more pleasing, Master?" Slippery organic flesh began wriggling around and through his fingers as the happy pod of dolphins used his hands as a playground. Since language was a, ahem, bit of a barrier in this situation, Blast Off's strict subconscious judge interpreted that as an affirmative. Tense shoulders relaxed fractionally, and the slave coding eased off its control.

Blast Off seethed and didn't even try to move. He'd used up the last of his willpower fighting the coding yesterday, and now he was just sickly resigned to being an obstacle course. He couldn't even manage to be revolted by the rubbery touch of the creatures bumping into his hands. There was a slick flood of pleasure coursing down his back for making his Master happy, instead.

His optics stayed locked on the speckled form of his owner, Lord, and center of every blasted bit of the accursed slave code. His Master was pale gray with darker markings across his head and a lighter underbelly. There was a scar across the animal's snout. There was a notch in his dorsal fin. Blast Off had nearly glitched when he'd lost track of the single dolphin in the pod's antics two days earlier, and he'd made himself memorize every individual characteristic of this particular dolphin the moment his fuel pump had stopped pounding. Well, and the moment he'd been able to raise his forehelm out of the shallow water where the coding had slammed him down to beg forgiveness for whatever disobedience had led his Lord and Master to abandon him.

The dolphins were whistling and clicking, still excited and playful. Blast Off checked the time and swallowed uneasily. After three days of this humiliating routine, he knew that once the sun ceased to shine warmly at the right angle to entertain the pod chasing glitters off his plating in the water, they would go off to chase schools of fish for sustenance. Which would be fine - Fantastic! Wonderful! Time to himself to get out of the water and let his self-repair stop repairing salt water damage and start repairing his thrusters! - except for the abandonment issue.

There was also a slight problem that was becoming rapidly more urgent. "Master," he started without much hope, "please, may I refuel?" He _knew _the animal didn't understand him, but the coding pressed on him until he surrendered and hopelessly said the words he would to any other owner. It would not _allow_ him to think of his Lord and Master as anything but as equally intelligent to himself, if not smarter. "Master, I beg you to allow me this today. My fuel levels are very low."

The dolphins squealed. Their frolicking began to head into deeper water, and Blast Off lurched in purely system-level panic, fuel pump rate beginning to pick up. "Master, please! What have I done?"

He knew what he'd done. Cosmos had gotten a lucky hit, the fragger, and Blast Off had taken a header from the upper atmosphere straight into the shallows of this tropical sea. While it was a minor miracle he'd regained enough lift not to plow at full speed into the water, every strut in his body ached from the rattling smash when he'd crashed. The impact had stripped his nosecone down to the circuitry and left his belly tender with cracked plating. Transforming had been agonizing. Limping to land had been worse yet. The worst part had been the nauseating realization that escaping the water hadn't stopped the nightmare.

The crash had activating a latent code every Cybertronian possessed. Usually, it wasn't a code that anyone worried about, because the slimy multi-tentacled bastards that'd once enslaved Cybertron hadn't been seen since before the Golden Age. The Quintessons were Cybertron's monsters under the berth, but the slavers were still a legitimate threat considering the fact that Autobot and Decepticon alike had the coding to override independent thought at the command of one of them.

Or at the command of a similar enough sentient creature. Not a new thing to be worried about by any means, but no matter how soft the Autobots appeared, not even Optimus Prime would have befriended the humans if they'd fit any of the similarity criteria.

Slagging _Pit_, what Blast Off wouldn't give to have been enslaved by a human. A human could _speak_. They had moral complexes and ethics, and Blast Off could have stomped his pride down enough to be a meek, defenseless slave long enough to play off of that. The Autobots would have put a stop to anything well before he'd have had to fear being turned over to a government somewhere to disappear.

However, his owner, Lord, and Master was no human. Blast Off wasn't that lucky. No, he'd run nosecone-first into the unwelcome discovery that the Autobots and Decepticons had relied too heavily on humankind's self-centered assumptions about this world. The humans believed that they were the only sentient species on the planet. They believed wrongly.

He'd come online half-buried in the soft sand at the bottom of this shallow sea, poked awake by a marine mammal who apparently registered barely high enough on the galactic market's scale of sentience to cause his now-active coding to run a comparison scan. And the gear-licking smear of organic filth _fit the criteria_.

Ah, no. No, no, Blast Off hadn't just -

He surged to his feet, almost falling forward in his haste, and lifted one hand after the pod splashing away. "Master, I'm sorry! I apologize humbly for my disloyal thoughts; please, I meant no disrespect!" Pain slashed across his mind and whipped across his wings in blaring feedback and self-activation from his sensor network. "Master, have mercy!"

He kept his voice down as much as he could despite the agony. The sliver of his mind that remained rational knew that loud noises would scare the animals away. His knees gave way, dumping gracelessly back down into the water. Blast Off offlined his optics - the afternoon sunlight was suddenly far too bright to tolerate - and suffered in shaking silence. He knew when this punishment ended, it would only mean that the next was about to begin.

The dolphins were going further out to sea. It happened every day. The beasts had to eat. They probably only returned to this beach because this was where Blast Off, stunned and reeling, had dragged his sorry wrecked aft. They were curious animals. He encouraged that curiosity, however much he hated himself for it. They loved to play and investigate, and the slave coding compelled Blast Off to fulfill his new owner's desire for entertainment.

When the need to eat drew the dolphin away, the mech's Master gave no indication that he wished Blast Off to follow him. There was no dismissal, so the coding interpreted that as abandonment. There was no rationalizing with the fragging code. Every slagging day it punished him for being abandoned.

Abandonment was the fault of the slave. Never was the owner to blame. Blast Off couldn't even think that.

"Master, **please**..."

His vocalizer strangled closed on his plea as a second rippling shrill of pain flowed over his sensor network. His tanks were running on empty, and he was about to be punished. This was the worst day of Blast Off's whole life.

There was a splash near one hand dropped limply into the water. The shuttleformer reset his optics and focused his pain-blurred vision. "…M…Master?"

Oh, thank _Primus_! The pain cleared in rush of urgent need to serve. His speckled master had returned to dive in among his fingers. Blast Off dared open his hand, and the dolphin slid up onto his palm in a slosh of water and clicks. He ran a knuckle up his owner's belly, and he got a pleased squeal in return.

Pleasure flushed down his backstruts, and the shuttle couldn't contain the whimper of a needy, powerless mech crawling for his owner's attention. "Master, please, I need fuel. Please, Master. Let me fuel, Master."

He'd tried following his owner out to sea the first day when the coding compelled him, but that attempt had quickly failed when his injured body began throwing warnings at him. He'd been forced to turn back to shore, begging forgiveness the whole way. The pod had swum around him curiously but soon left him behind. After that, the slave coding interpreted the lack of summons as meaning that his owner and Lord didn't wish accompaniment.

Hence, abandonment and punishment. Also starvation, because slaves weren't allowed to even fragging intake fuel without permission.

A fish suddenly darted out from under the shadows cast by Blast Off's frame, and the dolphin took off. Shoulders slumped, Blast Off kept his hand where it'd been abandoned like a toy on the playground. Exactly like that, in fact. If his master considered him a toy, then a toy he was.

His tanks were pinging him incessantly. The slave coding sternly berated him via a flicker of pain through his head for desperately wishing he could do anything without his owner's approval.

As fast as the animal zipped away, he returned. There was a firm nudge to Blast Off's palm. The shuttleformer bent closer to the water, optics zooming in on - a fish? His Lord and Master was trying to give him the fish?

Fish. Sustenance, for this particular species of mammal. Of course an animal couldn't fuel from energon, so yes! Yes, it was a gift! An indication that his owner wished him to fuel, right? "Thank you, Master," Blast Off blurted, delicately pinching the gift between two fingers and laying it on his comparatively massive hand. The tiny silver thing flopped in an extremely unappealing way. The slave coding told him it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever been given and he should express his appreciation. "I'm grateful, Master."

When the dolphin squeal-clicked and swam off toward the distant dorsal fins of his pod, however, the slave coding still chose to interpret that as abandonment. Blast Off's free hand went to his head as he dragged himself, shaking and wretchedly miserable, back up onto the beach. His other hand cradled the fish close. He kept it there even as he opened his cargo bay and dug his emergency rations out.

The energon would feed his self-repair systems and eventually get his communications array back online. It wouldn't do anything about his owner. He had no idea how the other Combaticons would react to his slave coding being activated and imprinting, much less what the rest of the Decepticons would do. Not that he wanted anything to be done about his Lord and Master! No, not Blast Off! Blast Off was his Master's loyal servant!

The shuttle buried his face in his free hand and groaned quietly as he punished himself yet again.

This was officially the worst day of his life. Unfortunately, tomorrow wasn't looking any better.

* * *

**center[* * * * *]**

_ Brainstorm - "no legacy"_

**[* * * * *]**/center

* * *

He wonders, even as he speaks, if this time will be the time Chromedome remembers. He doubts it, but he's already seen Rewind's message. It's…a good attempt.

Yes, of course he'd played it first. Why wouldn't he have? Sentimentality aside, privacy is a luxury that can't be afforded except as window dressing. Besides, it wouldn't be a grand, touching gesture if all Rewind's data slug contains is an emergency purge of classified data to prevent even the remotest chance of Overlord obtaining it. Brainstorm watched the message and passes the data slug on now because this is the third time he's given Chromedome this speech.

Brainstorm hands the data slug over because however much he doubted Rewind would be the special exception to the rule, he still wishes it'll work.

Chromedome _should_ remember. It's not healthy to forget love, no matter how it ends. It's not healthy that the mnemosurgeon keeps doing this. It's never been healthy, but Brainstorm has never been enough to convince the mech of that.

It stings his ego that he's not persuasive enough. If Rewind's little message succeeds where he's repeatedly failed, the scientist already knows he's going to resent the dead flashdrive for that. But he'll keep his vocalizer mute on it. As much as he hates putting himself second for anyone, even he knows that a conjunx endure comes before a friend.

Chromedome is his friend. Brainstorm wants the best for him even if he can't be the one to bring it about.

And he'll resent Rewind a bit, but he'll be grateful, too. Brainstorm is a genius. He's left a trail of amazing inventions and brilliant discoveries wherever he's been. Okay, maybe not on the same level as Perceptor, but - no, wait, derailing that train of thought. The _point_ is that Brainstorm will leave a legacy behind when he finally goes.

His hand tightens on the briefcase as the door closes behind him. Oh, yes. He'll leave a legacy, but he's always known that he, himself, will be forgotten.

Unless Rewind changes Chromedome's mind.

* * *

**center[* * * * *]**

_ Prowl/Jazz - "discipline" & "you've got to learn a lesson"_

**[* * * * *]**/center

* * *

He'd known the new tactician was into discipline. How could he not know? He was the fragging Head of Special Operations. He jiggled a wire in his web, and little gearspiders spies whispered sweet information about everything in his audios. His web went everywhere, even inside his own faction, and yes, Jazz knew the tactician was into discipline. The mech's unit had been so strictly managed it'd gotten stellar efficiency ratings across the board. That included as much ammunition usage as kill ratios.

Prowl made credit-pinching business owners look lax. He micromanaged his unit until Jazz wouldn't be surprised if the mech knew more about them than even Jazz's own spies did. Well, call that guess a solid 'maybe.' Jazz's itsy bitsy gearspiders found a lot of spouts to crawl up, and they were exceedingly clever about not getting flushed out, but Prowl kept a clean house. The webs kept getting dusted away.

Regardless, the tactician made the cut to get promoted to the Prime's officer cadre. Jazz interviewed him beforehand, of course, both officially and unofficially. Nobody made it up through the ranks without getting vetted, after all, and no way in the Pit was the Head of SpecOps letting anybody mediocre or potentially traitorous into Optimus Prime's close confidences.

Jazz walked away from the interview - and other, 'coincidental' meetings - thinking that the mech had a cold personality and a cool head under pressure. Not a bad thing when paired with him, really. Jazz could make coolant envious when he had to, but he'd cultured a volatile public personae on purpose, and he wasn't about to let this mech close enough to see past the jovial Jazzmeister. They probably wouldn't manage much of a close working relationship, but Jazz tended to keep away from those on principle anyway. The reason there was an opening in the cadre for a tactician wasn't because of natural causes, and Jazz preferred to minimize future emotional aches. This was war, not social hour. Prowl seemed like a tactician who could get the job done and likely hit any curve balls Megatron threw at him. As long as the mech could work with Jazz's peculiar style when taking care of business, this was going to be a good fill all around.

He even seemed to appreciate when Jazz laid that out for him. "I find no reason we cannot work together in a manner befitting our primary functions." The saboteur wondered a bit cynically if the mech even knew what Jazz's primary function was. The way Prowl was looking at him made it doubtful he _didn't_, and that made Jazz want to go double-check every firewall Special Operations had running. "Our separate priorities are both beneficial to the Autobots. Combining operations, I predict a 25% increase in Decepticons wishing for our demises, individually or jointly."

That flash of dry humor only showed through rarely, Jazz already knew. That taste of it plus the narrow, dangerous smile Prowl allowed himself made Jazz want to get to know this mech better. Anyone who could make him question the security of his division's personnel files with a handful of words and amused optics was worth cultivating as a contact, if nothing else.

Yeah, Prowl was a good addition to the Prime's officer cadre.

More than a good addition, the tactician proved to be one of the best choices the Autobots could have made. His ability to be suppress personal emotion balanced wonderfully against Wheeljack's enthusiasm, Ironhide's gung-ho anger, Ratchet's weary sarcasm, and Prime's ability to care too fragging much. SpecOp's seemingly chaotic web acquired a center, somebody to feed all the information to while Jazz was freed to scurry the wires tangled in forgotten corners. The dangerous black-and-white Autobot Third whispered with gearspiders and returned to weave support around Prowl's own plots and plans.

Well before the tactician got promoted to Second-in-Command, the Decepticons did indeed wish him dead. Him, and his smiling, visored shadow.

Unfortunately, Jazz was having trouble keeping his distance. "I like you," he said to the mech as they bent over the display table. "It's gettin' to where I wanna keep you alive."

Prowl looked at him, and the saboteur knew he understood. This was war, and some people in war had to be expendable. Especially the officers, who had to be exceptional mechs slotted into positions like replaceable parts. Officers had to see the mechs in the ranks as faceless numbers, yet balance that against how they were also people. It was the fight to keep that balance, expendable versus irreplaceable, and Jazz was losing his balance. Jazz, of all mechs, had to know everyone but the Prime could be sacrificed if the payoff was rich enough.

"Are you compromised?" Prowl asked, optics calculating, and Jazz smirked faintly.

"Don't get your aft caught, and we won't have to find out," he said back, and behind the cold blue optics, a mind like a mathematician's smoothly ticked through all the permutations of that. A mathematician of war, a mech standing between sociologist, historian, and machine. It was a difficult place to stand, but no more so than the spot Jazz occupied.

When every aspect of the saboteur's revelation had been accounted for, the tactician bent his head in a nod. "Likewise."

Jazz looked back at him, and behind his own impenetrable blue gaze, the part of him allotted to personal thought wondered if Prowl could see the calculations running. In all likelihood? Yes. Mech could see through a steel door if there was something Jazz wanted to hide behind it. It was a skill the saboteur unabashedly envied and admired, although it bothered him that he was so transparent. Only to this mech, only to Prowl, but yet Jazz couldn't see a single fragging clue in the tactician for however hard he tried.

It was the same puzzle the mech had handed him since their first meeting, so he let it go. They returned to their work and didn't speak of it again.

If they drifted a little closer, neither commented. If Jazz's web wove around Prowl a little tighter, the tactician said nothing. If Prowl stood a little more between others and his shadow, Jazz never mentioned it. The gearspiders whispered. The numbers ever changed. The war went on, and the Autobots couldn't afford the weakness of their Second and Third depending on each other more than necessary.

"How do you do it?" Jazz asked after a harrying rescue mission, leaning his hip against the berth as if his fuel pump hadn't spent the last three orns hammering wild concern through his body.

The damaged tactician looked up at him as he waited his turn under Ratchet's hands. Those cold blue optics saw everything. "How do you?"

Their words had no special emphasis. They sounded like they were mildly inquiring after each other's technique for testing energon for contaminates. Like every one of their exchanges, it was in plain sight and nobody looked twice, because there was nothing there to stare at. The Head of Special Operations still had his web, the Head of Tactical his numbers, and together or separate, those stayed the same.

"I asked first."

That got a faint quirk of Prowl's mouth. The mech was tired and injured. It'd been a long three orns. "You've got to learn a lesson." He looked at the other Autobots in the medibay, ever running his calculations on probabilities and the future. "What is two subtracted from three?"

It was a question with an obvious answer. Jazz gave it due thought even as he flippantly answered, "You rattled your battle-tac? It's one."

"Three subtracted from two?"

"Negative one." The mech's tactical net might actually be down. Jazz didn't think so, but he also didn't get what this lesson was supposed to teach.

Prowl saw his wary regard, and the tiny smile disappeared. "Yes. However, the absolute value remains the same. Take two from three, and one is left standing. Take three from two, and one remains. Those numbers do not change. That is the lesson. We are all numbers, Jazz. In war, we cannot be anything but. As long as one is left to balance the equation, two or three can be taken away. That is how I do it."

The blue visor looked into blue optics, and the optics saw the shock the casual look contained. Disciplined as always, Prowl's body language communicated nothing, and his face was a mask. Jazz's fuel pump stuttered at what he hadn't seen hiding behind that disciplined front.

Because in absolute values, yes, one always remained. But Prowl wouldn't have phrased his lesson that way if he didn't mean to communicate just how much Two valued Three, outside absolutes. If Jazz didn't return from a mission, the Autobots wouldn't just lose him. The absolute value would be there. Prowl would not die, but yet he would not survive.

It was quite possibly the most romantic thing Jazz had ever heard from a simple math lesson.

* * *

**[ * * * * *]**

**A/N:** _So people on this site are aware, I do take fanfiction commissions. See my Tumblr page under Bibliotecaria-D for details._


	9. Pt 9

**[* * * * *]**

**Tarn and Pharma kiss, Misfire realizes what happened, and Ratchet doesn't handle labor pangs well.**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**Title: **Candy From Strangers

**Warning: **Tarn and Pharma canoodling, in two far different degrees of consent. Silence and death. G1 Autobot medics being adorable.

**Rating: ** Pg-13?

**Continuity: **IDW & G1

**Characters: **Kaon, Tarn, Pharma, Misfire and Scavengers, Ratchet, Hoist, First Aid

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **A fantastic picture by FelixFellow ( felixfellow . tumblr post / 50507307518 / one-more-kiss-dear), a prompt off Tumblr, and something to help someone calm down.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Pharma/Tarn - "one more kiss, dear"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Tarn had taken his work home again.

Kaon didn't have to leave the bridge to watch, but he opened the door. He wanted to hear. The _Peaceful Tyranny_'s surveillance system gave him an optic-full of lovely white wings and slim legs wrapped around Tarn's hips, but nothing could beat out the sounds. Those, he wanted to hear first-hand echoing down the corridors. Tarn's voice, as always, murmured in a constant flow that called fuel pumps to pound faster as he swept toward the inevitable crescendo. The dip and pull of that talented, deadly voice sweetly whirled even Kaon's spark ever upward until the gasps, the stuttering cries, the rolling sobs all dragged into a long, shrieking climax.

Then the purring rumble of a contented, smug tank engine thrummed through the air. The hushed echo of quiet words afterward made Kaon smile. His fuel pump hammered in his audios, his spark reached for a partner that wasn't there, but Kaon smiled. Because Pharma didn't leave. He could have, but didn't, and that made all the difference.

The volume gradually swept higher, and the Autobot's token objections vanished under the velvet onslaught that teased Kaon's own spark all the way from here. He could easily imagine what the caress of sound was doing to its intended recipient.

The second round riled the blind mech up further, but it also shattered the incoherent whimpering into begging words spoken through trembling lips. Pharma likely thought he was whispering harsh demands, but Tarn had the surgeon screaming before the exquisite suspense finally snapped and pleasure collapsed down upon them like a crackling avalanche.

The entire ship rocked as overload took the two. Tank and jet engines _howled_, and the warring vibrations rattled their metal to the framework. Pleasure prolonged until the smaller, weaker Autobot slumped, exhausted, exactly where he belonged: under a Decepticon. Pharma broke to pieces under the Tarn's heavy frame. Broke, and was reassembled, and - biting his lip against the pleas surging over his tongue - broke again in the brutal, unexpectedly gentle hands of an expert torturer and better lover.

Up in the bridge, Kaon leaned against the door frame and hummed with the excess charge as he rubbed his hand up one electrical coil. It was a glorious ache, waiting like this. Listening like this, as he watched Tarn work Pharma over with all the patience and sadism of honest desire. What had begun as an interesting twist on a bargain had rapidly become an exercise in sincere lust for the vocalist.

Pharma wanted the D.J.D. to leave his precious clinic alone, and for the deal he'd struck, Pharma allowed Tarn his toying. Necessity was the creator of innovation, and Tarn did have needs to inspire him. Carnal desire thrust the tank to new heights of passion, working the surgeon to clawing and wailing against Tarn's chest, because Tarn didn't _need_ his little project to stay past the first overload. He just _wanted_ it.

Thus, Kaon got his show.

And afterward, when Pharma's lusciously slender legs could support him again, Kaon got to watch through the ship's surveillance system as the surgeon wobbled toward the exit. Sleek wings were held proudly, if tiredly, but Tarn bypassed their tempting handholds to lean down and curl his arms around Pharma instead. Murmurs floated down the corridors. Fine surgeon's hands pushed impatiently at the sly groping sliding down over yellow canopy glass.

Tarn turned the protesting Autobot in his arms and coyly suggested something before cupping the back of Pharma's helm in one massive hand. The surgeon blinked, shocked, but had no chance to struggle before the tank bent down. Pharma stiffened into a rigid statue, optics whiting out in sheer indignation. Tarn nuzzled, turned his head, and pressed his mask to slack lips again. His other hand firmly gripped a pert aft and pulled, bringing the short flyer forward to grind slowly. Slow as the kiss, and just as heated.

After a moment, resistance melted away.

_*"He's going to be late,"*_ Kaon said over the commline. Empty optic sockets hungrily watched blue hands gradually rise to sink skilled fingers into tank treads once more.

_*"I do hope so,"*_ Tarn replied, amused.

Kaon left the door open.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Pharma/Tarn - "one more kiss, dear"_ x2

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* * *

It was possible, although inadvisable, to deceive a Decepticon. Yes, even this one.

He couldn't have managed it if the lie weren't preceded by so many truths. When a mech had a reputation, it didn't take much to keep the façade up even as the exact opposite came true. The last thing anyone would expect was a 'Con-hating, uptight prude of a medic to have an optic for hefty groundframes with wide tires and loud engines. Combine that with a secret guilty pleasure for being pursued, and Pharma was sold.

There was something terribly exciting in how Tarn's optics watched him. They were hot and red, carnal and craving in a way that had nothing to do with the T-cogs being bargained over. He'd have found a way to introduce the idea even if the Decepticon hadn't suggested it first, but far be it from him to discourage Tarn from thinking he hated the addendum. Oh, yes, it was a filthy, disgusting chore. Mm-hmm, how horrible. He could barely stand to let those broad hands touch him.

It was a perfect little cover for how very much he enjoyed it. Better yet, the Decepticon seemed to believe the only way to keep him coming back for more was to make him writhe in pleasure every time. That suited Pharma just fine. He _liked_ being coaxed from the sky by the thundering purr of an aroused engine, or chased until he finally relented and landed to suffer those hands on him. He _liked_ being handled like he'd flee if not rendered senseless by as many overloads as physically possible.

So the dignified, wary surgeon let himself be seduced by the leader of the D.J.D., nervous wings ever ready to take flight, and Tarn was ever-so-pleased with his repeated, nonexistent conquest. Large hands caressed polished, warm metal, and Pharma feigned reluctance under them. Inside, he preened under the attention, positively reveling in how much effort Tarn put into convincing him to walk into the tank's arms. The harder he made Tarn work to convince him, the longer the insufferably arrogant glitch kept him once grounded, crying out in helpless bliss as the smug fragger taught him lesson upon lesson about the foolishness of resistance, until Pharma conceded him victory from utter exhaustion.

Then the 'Con stroked and praised and admired him, gloating but magnanimous in triumph. Every bit of the attention he deserved was turned upon him, pattering over him like a glorious rain, and Pharma soaked in it. Not that he showed it, however. The surgeon sulked in Tarn's greedy hands, practically twitching in his eagerness to escape and fly away, so of course those hands had to hold him all the tighter, now didn't they?

Nestled close to that powerful frame, wings vibrating as Tarn's engine roared, Pharma dug his fingers into those thick treads and held on as Tarn brought him precisely where he wanted to go. It was the best kind of deception: the kind where both sides won, fair and square.

Mutual lust served as a good distraction as well. Tarn would never forget about feeding his sick addiction, but he had a weakness for snarky banter. Once he had a box of T-cogs in hand, he could be somewhat absent-minded, especially if there were flirty wings defiantly keeping just out of reach. Let him get a hold on Pharma, and the box would be shuffled to the side to deal with later. A little recreational struggle to land his prize sealed the deal, and Tarn's attention would lock on the fluttering pulse of his pretty prey's spark instead of how many T-cogs were in that box.

It didn't _always_ work, but Pharma didn't always let himself be chased down, either. The pursuit was more fun for both of them if the ending were uncertain. Tarn either seized him when he landed, or he got away. Usually that was enough to keep interest high.

Then there were the times when he had to get inventive. One or two shy of quota every few months, Tarn would let pass. Six T-cogs short in one month?

"You wouldn't be delaying, would you?" the Decepticon asked as long-fingered surgeon's hands whispered across his chest.

Pharma glanced up and away, expression somewhere between coy and grumpy. It wasn't often that _he_ initiated anything. It was a dead give-away when he did, although the tank didn't know how deliberate the ploy really was. "Delaying what?"

One finger caught his chin and forced his head up, and Tarn's mask came down to nudge his mouth in a parody of a kiss. Surprised and unsure, Pharma hesitated, and the hand slid back to capture his helm before he could pull away. "Delay me counting your **tithe**," Tarn said, and the purring whisper poured down the Autobot's throat to pile silken, syrupy pressure on top of the vulnerable spark trembling behind yellow canopy glass.

The flyer's vocalizer betrayed him, and Tarn chuckled darkly as a moan slipped from Pharma's forcibly opened lips. Instead of attempting to answer in a somewhat dignified manner - and artfully dodging answering at all - Pharma dipped down to venture a lick at the mask slit venting hot air at him.

The tank jolted, and the Autobot carefully didn't smirk. That hadn't been expected, hmm? Good.

They both played their games, but Pharma rarely showed when he held the upper hand. It caught Tarn by surprise every time, which was exactly how the surgeon wanted it. It couldn't be exploited often without losing effect, but when he wanted the rank taken off-guard?

His optics hardened, and his jaw worked for a second before the surgeon licked again, catching a slippery flick against a tongue that unconsciously slid out to meet it. Tarn's optics narrowed to fiery red slits of demand made from liquid desire and a foggy, waking _yearning_ he probably didn't feel blooming under his armor until the hand on the back of Pharma's helm softened from a hard hold to a gentle, urging pressure. When was the last time this fanatic killer had kissed someone? That mask was welded on.

Any thought of it had likely been ignored. Tarn wasn't the type to sigh after what was lost. Possibly he'd convinced himself such intimacies were better pushed aside in favor of duty.

Pharma smirked against the mask. A mech didn't know what he'd forgotten until the ache of absence was brought back to tease him with.

He opened his mouth further and turned his head to thrust the tip of his tongue through the slit, licking along the inside edge while a larger, more desperate tongue chased, trying to curl around, trying to grasp contact Tarn probably hadn't even realized he'd missed. It was hunger more than thought, a purely physical craving. Pharma dimmed his optics and slid his lips from one side to the other, cycling deep, hot vents that the Decepticon panted back at him in turn, and sides of their tongues brushed slickly. The fleeting touch rocked the tank, sending that huge grounder engine revving out of control at the exotic, erotic sensation. Pharma could feel how tension stabbed through the larger mech like a bolt of electricity had just shocked him.

The surgeon's hands came up to cradle that vicious mask, then grab the sides in a vise grip as he plunged his tongue in as far in as it would go.

A nearly _pained_ groan rumbled out underneath the sudden soft explosive whirr of fans switching to full bore. Tarn's arms dropped to wrap around the flyer, crushing Pharma to him in a possessive embrace. The Autobot shifted inside it, not uncomfortable but pretending discomfort in order to feel how their armor scraped together. The tank's frame enfolded him in a heated, heavy hold that pulled him closer as if the hint of wanting to escape made him yet more desirable. He was the Decepticon's captive, and it left his spark excited in a way that other lovers had never managed. Hot plating fit into and against hot plating, and Pharma had to override his own ventilation system to keep his breathing regulated enough to pass off as reluctant.

Badly-repaired lips hidden by the mask mouthed after the moist tongue tip just barely able to reach far enough in to trace over them, and Pharma took quick little licks at them. The sensitive tip of his tongue kept catching on weld-scars, and he kept pressing it to them like he could map out the mech's concealed face with his tongue alone. Tarn's notorious vocalizer could only produce a quiet, needy rasp when the surgeon thrust a fraction more tongue through the slit of his mask. Those scarred lips pursed, trying to close on it, catch it, suck frantically on it. When Pharma's tongue stayed still to allow it, Tarn's tongue lapped along the underside, against the sides, over every single bit of the surgeon Tarn could reach like he couldn't have enough.

Tarn tasted of oily fuel, his energon tainted by the thick lubricants required by his frame. Pharma muffled a groan of his own and yanked the purple mask even closer. He pulled his mouth away despite the immediate, disappointed growl, but the protest cut off when he used his hold to jerk Tarn down to kiss the weld lines, the battle damage. His tongue darted through the optic holes to give tiny licks to the metal around the red glass. It was messy and wet, and the Decepticon made a strangled noise full of raw lust as Pharma _tasted_ him, explored what couldn't been seen, and raked teeth down the front of his mask in a grating squeal of metal on metal as if to punish what was visible. Engines howled, and it was impossible to tell whose was running harder, now.

When the surgeon's hands released the sides of his mask and pushed violently against his chest, the massive tank sank back without a fight under the Autobot. Pharma followed him down.

The missing T-cogs were never mentioned, after that.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Misfire - "the silence is keenly felt"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

They couldn't hear him.

It's the first thing Misfire realized. Not that the pain had stopped - that actually took a while to sink in - but that nobody could hear him. Trying not to hear him and not being able to hear him looked different, no matter how Krok had pretended back when the officer still thought being ignored would shut him up. Being ignored was a challenge. Not being heard was just weird.

Misfire sat up from where Tesarus had dropped him, saw the living grinder advancing on Krok, and was baffled when an instinctive yell of, "Hey, frag-face, I'm not done with you!" went unnoticed.

On the one hand: good. The yell had been sheer bravado backed by nothing but total panic. He didn't really want Tesarus to come back and turn him to minced metal. Right now, there was no one available to help him. Flywheels was over there getting stomped by Vos and gnawed on by that drooling freakshow turbofox; Spinister and Crankcase were being tossed around by Helex; Tarn was taking out Grimlock; Krok was held helpless by Kaon. Who the frag knew where that slagger Fulcrum had taken off to. The unit was getting their afts handed to them, and Misfire wanted nothing more than to take off and fly for his life.

On the other hand: bad. Krok was his officer, and they were fighting the D.J.D. _together_.

Also bad: Vos kicked Flywheels over to be stomped into the ground by Tesarus while the slender Decepticon walked toward Krok and - had he seriously just taken his _face_ off?! There was creepy, and then there was the D.J.D., and this was definitely beyond creepy. This was the D.J.D., and aw frag no, was Vos going to shove that into Krok's face? Bad! That was bad! That was the opposite of good, here!

Once again, Misfire's mouth went off without conscious thought on the part of his mind that was in a gibbering panic over current events. "Hey! Hey, **tire-muncher**! Rust your motherboard and scramble your - your - what the frag..?"

The second thing he realized was that he couldn't hear himself. Nobody noticed him talking, but he wasn't hearing anything, either. He knew he was talking. His vocalizer engaged, all the automatic processes whirring busily away in the back of his mind as per usual, but nothing happened. In fact, he wasn't even sure his vocalizer was receiving the commands. The more thought he gave it, startled and reflexively running a hardware check, the fewer of those automatic functions seemed to be running. The fewer of _any_ of his functions pinged back as functioning, or even, well, there at all.

Krok screamed as Vos shoved drills and nasty pointy things into his face. Mouth hanging open in speechless indignation and anger, Misfire surged to his feet to do _something_. Primus alone knew what, because all he knew was that he had to do it. Nobody did that to Krok!

That's when he realized that he'd left his body on the ground. Technically it was a pile of messy scrap, but it'd been his body up until a few moments ago. When...Tesarus finished passing Misfire through his grinder. Memory clicked over in Misfire's mind, and things twisted around to take on a different perspective entirely. The massive mech hadn't dropped Misfire; he'd spat him out!

That had hurt. Now it didn't. Misfire belated registered that the pain had, in fact, stopped. So had his vital functions. His vocalizer wasn't working because there was no vocalizer left to work. The processes he'd assumed were running in the background of his mind had stopped. There was nothing left for them to run, and no CPU to run in.

The third thing Misfire realized was that he was dead.

The jet stayed stock still, feet still planted in the ruins of his body, as the battle came to a close. As Fulcrum fell and failed to explode. As the D.J.D. left. As the living members of his unit reassembled.

They gathered up Grimlock. They poked through Misfire's remains. No matter how he shouted or gestured, they neither heard nor saw him. His hands passed through them. When they headed toward the ship, he watched them go with the helpless bewilderment of the newly dead. Shock held him paralyzed.

When the W.A.P. departed Clemency, it left the planet quiet as a grave behind it, and it didn't matter how Misfire screamed in its wake.

He was dead. He couldn't hear himself. They couldn't hear him.

The rest was silence.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_De-stressing comment fic_

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* * *

"Breathe," the nurses had told Carly, over and over. "Breathe with me. In, out. In, out. Come on, one more breath. In - can you breathe in? Good, good. Now out. Good."

Cybertronians couldn't breathe, per se, but the three Autobots huddled together were taking the advice anyway. "You're doing great," Hoist said, patting Ratchet on the shoulder.

"Of course I'm doing great. I'm doing fantastic. I'm good. Grand. I'm just **dandy**." Metal squealed as the _Ark_' CMO gritted his teeth together, and Hoist exchanged a glance over his chevron with First Aid.

Who took over shoulder-patting duties without a hitch. "No one ever said you weren't," was spoken soothingly in time with the pats. "Can you give me a deep breath in?"

"Don't tell me to breathe in," Ratchet grumbled, breathing in. "Ventilation systems don't work like that." Hoist's cautious tugging eased him a bit further back into the most comfortable piece of furniture they'd been able to find for this. They'd apologize to Prowl later for what Ratchet was doing to his office chair. There were grooves scored down the arms now as anxious fingers had tightened more and more as the hours passed.

To be fair, this wasn't a procedure Ratchet had endured often. Three times since arriving on Earth, to be precise, and this was the first time it'd been planned instead of a frantic emergency. Turned out that planning ahead didn't reduce the pain of waiting. Delivery was a tedious pressure spiked by nervous surges of energy with nowhere to go. A new life hung in the balance. The crotchety old mech was tweaked to the Pit and back on helplessness, because there was nothing more he could do to aid that tiny scrap clinging with a fragile grip to life. He'd done everything possible up until this point, but now the actual procedure was in the capable hands of someone other than him, because he was stuck in this chair tensing and relaxing in turns.

Hence the reason First Aid had Ratchet under his patient care, patting away. First Aid was a professional patter. Not that Ratchet needed help to get through this, oh no. Nobody would ever say that (out loud), because nobody was that stupid.

Well, the Dinobots had offered, but the Dinobots had thick plating. They'd also asked when their new sibling would be ready to meet them.

Ratchet's strained little noises had been accompanied by strangling motions. Swoop, Grimlock, and Snarl had hugged him in response, as a small, suspiciously Wheeljack-like birdie had apparently told them that the expecting medic needed frequent expressions of support to get through what looked like a long, possibly difficult labor. And maybe Ratchet had hugged the trio of supportive Dinobots back, but they were big enough to have kept anyone else from getting photographic evidence so _he admitted nothing._

"Good, that's wonderful," the younger medic praised him now, definitely not acting as moral support at all. "Again?"

"I'll show you again."

"Here, let me breathe with you. In."

Ratchet sucked in a huge gulp of air, and a bolt pinged loose somewhere deep in his overstressed ventilation system. "I don't want to breathe! I'm sick of this slag, and tired, and I just want it to be over!"

"I know," First Aid patted away. All three of the Autobot medics were tired after sitting through this rollercoaster of an event, but Ratchet was exhausted. It was obvious in the slight tremor of his hands. That didn't surprise either of the medics sitting with their friend. The old mech had poured so much of himself into this frail kindling of hope that First Aid couldn't even bear to think about what would happen if things took a turn for the worse. In the wider scheme of an eons-long war and two conflicted worlds, one newborn life didn't seem like much, but it was enough to heal an experience-embittered spark - or break it. "We all do, but these things need to happen naturally. Now out. Can you breathe out with me? There we go."

Hoist had bent closer while they breathed, so he was the first to notice. "I see a head! There's a head!"

Suddenly, Ratchet was no longer a gruff, older model being placated by two young upstarts. Instead, he was a nervous wreck inside a tornado of elbows and more knees than seemed physically possible. "Out of the way! I want to see - First Aid, **move** your wheels - "

"Ah, ah, we agreed," First Aid said, so calm it was clear he was trembling with excitement. He kept his hands firm, however, pinning his mentor's shoulders down, and Ratchet squirmed like a mech a fourth his age. "You stay right there, because otherwise you'll throw things or pick a fight with Ironhide. Remember? Stay down."

Ratchet nearly whined, "But I want to **see**!"

'And you will." Soothe, soothe, soothe.

Grumble mutter curse. "I'll fraggin' well see what I want to see when I want to see it. Who's in charge here, anyway?"

Hoist ignored them both in order to continue watching, optics shining and a hand outstretched as if afraid to touch a dream. It was illogical, but he feared this moment might burst like a bubble. Instead, he just cooed softly, "Ohh, look at it. So small and new. Ratchet, look what you did!"

Relief swept in to wipe away the anxiety and tension as if it'd never been. The elder medic started squirming again, this time in embarrassed pleasure. "I didn't do anything. It was all Prime."

"Prime contributed," First Aid corrected him gently, refusing to let him brush aside well-deserved acknowledgement. "You're the one who went through the effort. You have been the one who stubbornly tried to hide this until it grew too much to carry yourself and you finally let us help. It hurt my spark to see you lash out after the failures, and I was right there with you when everything finally went right. We've all seen you bear this burden for months, now, and here's the fruit of your labor."

Ratchet looked up at him, optics wide and profoundly humbled by the truth of his words.

Never had an interruption been so well timed to save someone's reputation as a hard-aft. Not that the interruption helped, as it came in the form of Hoist squeaking slightly, outstretched hand retracting to ball up and press to his face. "Two! There's two! That's - holy Primus, that's incredible! What're the odds?"

Megatron himself couldn't have kept Ratchet down. "Move it!" He sat forward, pushing aside his friend and the calming hands that took to rubbing the back of his neck. Then he looked down and _saw_, and it knocked the bluster right out of him "Oh. Oh. I…did I...?"

He would never, ever admit to the delicate shell of wonder that spread across his face. One of his own hands fumbled, searching for something secure in the dizzying upsweep as the ground fell out from underneath him, and he _flew_. There was life, and it was wonderful, and he'd brought it into a wartorn universe that constantly saturated him in death. Guilt and joy collided.

Hoist was right there to hold him steady, both hands holding his own between them, and Ratchet clung to him. He still couldn't manage keep his voice level. "Are those **mine**?"

"Breathe," their younger coworker reminded his fellow medics even as he beamed proudly. "Yes, Ratchet. Those are yours. Yours, and Prime's."

On the screen they all stared at so avidly, a man in overalls stepped into view and smiled back at the cluster of mesmerized Cybertronian medics. "Yes, they're 'yours,' Mr. Ratchet, and we here at the San Diego Zoo would like to thank you again for your contributions to the Black Rhino Breeding Program. As you can see," the sparse crowd of veterinarians and aids clapped quietly in the background as the second baby slid out, "your generous donation has brought another critically endangered species back one step further from the edge of extinction. We'd like to think that makes you the surrogate father to these little pieces of our planet." His smile turned understanding as the Autobot in the center of the cluster rested shaking fingers against the screen, and the look on the old, old medic's face was indescribable. "Your adopted children thank you for the gift of life, as does all of Earth."

Ratchet buried his face in his hands, overwhelmed.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


	10. Pt 10

Optimus Prime puts on an erotic dance in a parking lot; Sunstreaker has magic hands; Ambulon takes Rung (and himself) by surprise; Blast Off's bad day infects the other Combaticons. There are dolphins involved.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

**Title: **Candy From Strangers, Pt. 10

**Warning: **Inappropriate use of traffic cones, Bob cuddles, arousal from being objectified, and xeno implications

**Rating: ** Pg-13?

**Continuity: **IDW & G1

**Characters: **Starscream, Megatron, Ratchet, Optimus Prime, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Bob, Ratchet, Ambulon, First Aid, Rung, Combaticons

**Disclaimer: **The theatre doesn't own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.

**Motivation (Prompt): **A prompt from a chat, a request from Shibara, a picture from her as well, and a sequel that nobody asked for.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Optimus Prime - "making a traffic cone sexy"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

This wasn't how prisoner exchanges were meant to happen.

The arrangements were pretty typical, for Earth. The deal was that one single Autobot could approach and release Soundwave, and then Ratchet could be retrieved. Because of Soundwave's small, vulnerable altmode - so crushable when in-hand - Megatron had tacked on an additional requirement: the chosen Autobot had to remain in altmode the entire time. They'd meet in a parking lot, and the Decepticons would keep their weaponry powered down, but the Autobot had to drive to meet them.

As far as precautions went, that wasn't all _that_ unusual. Or rather, it wouldn't have been except that Starscream had done an inspection of the _Victory_'s barracks before Megatron and an honor guard of three Decepticons had left for the prisoner exchange. Such officer duties never put the Air Commander in a good mood, but inspections on Earth were the bad kind of special duty. Booby-trapped berths were the least of an officer's problems during inspection. Granted, Starscream had gotten further than Scrapper had managed, but he'd still only gotten halfway through the barracks before giving up. That'd been enough to put him in a foul mood, because confiscating anything against regulations here on Earth was a never-ending exercise in frustration.

But he _had_ gotten halfway. Hence the makeshift driving course challenge in the Cost Co. parking lot. It was made of orange traffic cones and yellow construction barricades confiscated from Skywarp's dubious intentions and illegal ownership. The fuming Air Commander had repurposed them, half to torment the Autobots and half to annoy the black Seeker. Starscream had been in a bit of a huff after storming out of the crew quarters. There were still aqua paint spatters on his thrusters.

Megatron had allowed Starscream his snitfit, in part because allowing his Second a harmless outlet meant Skywarp wouldn't have to report to the repairbay to get a traffic cone removed from somewhere it shouldn't be lodged. However, it was also because making Optimus Prime jump through hoops of diplomatic formalities could be entertaining, but making him carefully navigate an actual obstacle course was even more so. Megatron had watched in some amusement as his darkly-muttering Second had set up an entire maze, complete with obstacles to navigate around and a loading area just barely big enough to fit Prime's altmode trailer.

His amusement had quickly turned into something less definable. The other Decepticons' moods had made a similar shift. Skywarp's seething resentment, Thundercracker's boredom, and Starscream's high-pitched and very vocal smugness had all tapered off into silent staring.

Optimus' reaction had caught them unprepared. Ratchet had grudgingly transformed into his own altmode for the occasion - airlifting an ambulance in a sling was probably going to be a human competitive sport by the end of the year - and traded snarking commentary with Starscream during set-up. He'd predicted that the Autobot leader would pause, mildly rebuff Megatron for the unannounced addition to the prisoner exchange, and then simply plow through the complicated course in order to reach the designated loading area. Megatron had snorted a laugh and agreed with the medic.

They'd both been wrong.

Optimus hadn't said anything about the orderly mass of just-wide-enough traffic guidance paraphernalia. He'd rolled to a stop after making the left turn into the parking lot. He'd sat there idling as he took in the maze. The Decepticons had waited on the other end of the parking lot, relaxed but ready for the standard speech and counter-speech both Megatron and Prime tended to see as necessary. Megatron even had a few snide remarks culled from Starscream's post-inspection tirade to use tonight.

The speech hadn't come. Instead, the semi-truck had done an awkward three-point turn in the limited space of the driveway. When he was turned around, he began backing up.

Through the maze. Without disrupting the organized chaos in the slightest. Optimus Prime was backing that wide load _up_, and the Decepticons had no choice but to stand there, dumbfounded, and watch it slowly wag as the Autobot leader painstakingly navigated the maze in reverse.

Starscream blew air out his vents, exasperated but resigned, and pinged a change to the Stunticon's training schedule. Megatron absently approved it. Motormaster would throw a tantrum at being signed up for Drivers' Education courses, but the mech was going to buckle down and practice anyway. This wasn't trick driving. This wasn't a high speed chase. Those things, the Stunticions excelled at, but there was no way in the Pit that Motormaster could drive like _this_. Not all maneuvering could or should be done at high speeds and with as much property damage as physically possible, and the Prime was currently proving that point. As the commander of the Decepticons' direct-contact fighting unit against the mostly ground-bound Autobots, Motormaster needed to learn how to do this ASAP.

Although...perhaps he didn't need to take lessons from the Optimus Prime School of Drivers' Ed. He was somewhat young for that kind of instruction.

Megatron felt his optic frames twitch, lenses spinning out and back into focus on the wide rear end backing toward him. Prime caught on another orange traffic cone. That sleek, thick bumper went into a leisurely dance, as if the Autobot had the all the time in the world to tease himself off the plastic cone. He repeatedly moved forward and then back again, plump tires turning the tiniest amount, back and forth. The trailer end described little, taunting circles that gradually danced him around and off the traffic cone out. It turned it like a top under him, the tip snagged on his undercarriage, and the Prime's jigging caused it to rock on its base in a fast half circle, then a slow finish, only to sweep into another rushed circle that nearly, _nearly_ tipped the cone over, but the achingly slow rotation brought it back to the asphalt safely.

When it finally popped free and clattered on the ground, the four watching Decepticons gasped in strained unison. Megatron hadn't even realized his ventilation system had fallen into sync with the Prime's delicate wriggling.

Starscream shook his head to snap out of the weird trance they were in. "Right." He reached down, picked up the ambulance snickering at their feet, and turned Ratchet around to set in the loading area. Now sitting on his wheels facing them, the medic didn't seem to know what to do. Starscream flicked a finger behind the Autobot. "Go meet him halfway, or we'll be here all night."

Emergency lights flashed incredulously. "You're kidding."

"No," Megatron rasped, still staring as the Prime snagged on yet another traffic cone. "Prime's too much of an honorable idiot to not unload Soundwave before leaving."

Ratchet grumbled his engine but obediently threw it into reverse. Apparently, Optimus' precise navigation of the maze was something of a challenge to the medic. He made it to the first tight turn before snagging on his own traffic cone. Softly cursing, he began rocking himself clear, doing his own little dance.

The Decepticons settled in for the show.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Rung - "too old for surprises"_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

Being called on by a civilian adjunct was new. Somewhat surprising, as well. It'd been a long time since any of the three medics aboard the _Lost Light_ had thought in terms of peace, when requesting the cooperation of an entirely different division within the Autobots wasn't a huge complication and possible security threat. Instead, it was a professional courtesy between doctors, and a personal favor because it involved their off-duty hours. Rung entered the medibay with his little smile and utter confidence as he asked their assistance, and Ratchet, First Aid, and Ambulon didn't have the slightest idea of what to say.

Which didn't stop them from running their mouths, anyway.

"Well I - "

"This seems rather - abrupt, wouldn't you say? And surely - "

"Is this professional?"

" - not entirely comfortable with the idea of an unknown Autobot touching my - "

" - how would that be helpful? I mean, I'm not telling you how to do your job - "

" - really? Really? Because that's exactly what it sounded like to me. He's older than all of us put together, you realize - "

" - I know that, but this seems highly suspicious - "

" - have to agree. The idea of being allowed to handle someone without consequences - "

" - true, the lack of negative feedback would probably benefit several Autobots I could name offhand. Anything positive, and those mechs automatically assume it's nothing more than a shallow 'facing, but anything less is offensive - "

" - a trust issue? I'm still not sure that being put in the middle of that - "

" - might be the point, if you think about it. It's not **about** us, it's about the patient - "

"But why us? We're medics, for Primus' sake - "

"Oh, and who else would you trust to bring in on a psychotherapy session? Anyone else is like asking Cyclonus to buff someone after I've closed up on surgery - "

"We **have** taken oaths of patient confidentiality - "

"Those haven't been relevant since the war started - "

"The war's over."

The three arguing medics, startled, turned toward the short orange Autobot who'd been standing there, patiently waiting. His words echoed.

When he left, they seemed to get louder.

Ratchet mutter-grumbled his way back to his office in a blatant dodge. He was probably going to bury his helm in filework, but First Aid and Ambulon had appointments to prepare for. There was nowhere to escape the words.

The discussion happened in spurts and starts as they puttered around the medibay. It didn't really go anywhere, but the circles were interesting.

"Are we trying to talk ourselves out of it, or into it?" the former nurse asked after the fourth time they'd ended up where they'd started.

Ambulon frowned, opened his mouth, closed it, and frowned some more. "…I'm not sure."

Eventually, Ratchet barged out of the office to join their not-discussion. Filework hadn't been enough to blot out Rung's quiet request, it seemed. His addition to the circle of repeated excuses only made it more profane. Ambulon really had to admire the Chief Medical Officer's grasp on colorful language, sometimes.

"Right," the ward manager decided after Ratchet chased the last patient out in a hail of grouchiness. "I elect myself Prosecution. First Aid?"

His coworker seized on the familiar method in relief. They'd played this off against Pharma more than once when it came to debating patient treatment and supply purchasing priorities. "Defense. Ratchet, can you sit as Judge Advocate? You just have to listen and decide who has a better argument."

Their new boss eyed them warily but nodded.

To an outsider, the relationship between First Aid and Ambulon probably seemed like a caustic thing barely contained within professional boundaries. Ratchet certainly seemed alarmed when the two junior medics squared off against each other over a repair berth, First Aid bouncing on his heels and Ambulon scowling grimly. They looked like they were about to attack each other.

And yes, they did tear into each other on a regular basis over mundane stuff. Ambulon was a stickler for Medibay Standard Operating Procedures, Autobot Code rules and regulations, and organization in general; First Aid did his research but followed intuition in the end, and his whims occasional led to him slacking his duties. Ambulon didn't have much of a life outside of his job, and he made it a point of pride not to let his personal life interfere in any way with his professional one. First Aid wasn't that meticulous about his own separation. Their dissimilar approaches to work made contact outside of it fairly scarce.

It was also Ambulon's job as ward manager to make sure First Aid _did_ his job, which made things sometimes tense inside the medibay. First Aid didn't necessarily like being marked up for the times he cut corners or disobeyed S.O.P. to follow a flash of inspiration. He definitely resented every tick mark on his record for the times Ambulon caught him indulging in that Wreckers' obsession while on duty. He understood why Ambulon did it, but he didn't have to like it, and Ambulon only cared that First Aid knew the reasoning behind every mark-up. Opinions were unimportant.

What had happened at the Delphi Clinic still hung between them awkwardly, especially since Ambulon had stiffly filed a formal protest against Ratchet's promotion of the former nurse. First Aid had been demoted due to "erratic behavior and obsessive/compulsive tendencies." That diagnosis still stood; therefore, so should the demotion according to M.S.O.P. Rung had quietly confirmed the original diagnosis and offered to start therapy, but First Aid had refused, claiming that being promoted by Ratchet negated the diagnosis. That wasn't, no matter what First Aid insisted, how diagnosed mental instabilities in medibay personnel were handled.

Ambulon, still doing his job, had filed personnel conflict complaints against Ratchet. He didn't know if it was favoritism or a symptom of the _Lost Light_'s ubiquitous unprofessional behavior, but what else was he supposed to do? It was his _job_ to manage the doctors in his ward, and this doctor was as unsuitable as when he'd initially been diagnosed and Ambulon had subsequently demoted him.

He'd get on his knees and beg to save a patient's life. He'd done so before, and he'd do it again without hesitation. It was the only weapon a Decepticon medic had to protect the injured and defenseless under his care. As an Autobot, he could act preemptively to save patients before it came to that. He could and _did_, even if it meant alienating himself from his coworkers and destroying any chance he'd ever have at a promotion. So he'd filed personnel complaints and compiled evidence and done everything he could to convince Ratchet that First Aid was an exemplary nurse but a potential danger to patients as a full medic, much less as the _Chief Medical Officer_ in training. A promotional leap of that magnitude, especially under the circumstances, was absurd!

First Aid was mentally unstable. He could handle the responsibilities of a nurse, but handing him the authority and responsibilities of a doctor was a bad call. Ambulon was tentatively convinced that First Aid could resume the position of a full medic once acknowledgement _and treatment_ of the instabilities happened. Psychological problems didn't mean a mech couldn't be a medic. Just look at Glit; the Decepticon medic was absolutely notorious as an engex-addicted drunkard, but he was _the_ role model for the Decepticon Medic Corps. And a hefty chunk of the Autobot Medical Division, too. Mental instabilities just meant that steps had to be taken get them under control.

But those steps had to be taken. Ensure First Aid's problems didn't endanger patients, and Ambulon would huff and reluctantly withdraw his protests against Ratchet's promotion of the former nurse. Until then, and until Ratchet saw reason, he would file personnel complaints because it was part of his job. Nobody else had to like what he did. It was still his job.

Ultra Magnus had gravely considered the personnel complaints and assured Ambulon he would bring them up with Rodimus. Ambulon didn't have great hopes that anything would happen. Ultra Magnus took his job seriously; Rodimus, not so much.

So when Ambulon and First Aid squared off against each other, there was some real tension there. Ratchet's optics jumped between them apprehensively.

"It's not part of any of our job requirements," Ambulon said bluntly.

First Aid snorted lightly and countered, "If we were limited by job requirements, we'd be knocked over anytime the Decepticons came up with something new to throw at us. Our profession is one of flexibility, not strict adherence to outdated standards."

"Oh, please, you wouldn't known professional standards if they bit you in the aft!"

And they were off.

After the yelling started, Ratchet actually relaxed a little. He still seemed somewhat baffled by the ease the two junior medics traded insults and legitimate points, but this seemed to be the way discussions got done between them. Ambulon methodically wiped down and sterilized everything within reach. First Aid idly followed him around the medibay sitting on surfaces he'd just cleaned and building little towers out of the supplies he'd just put away. Ambulon then turned right around to resterilize and dissemble the towers in order to put them away again. It was a bizarre circle of irritation made all the more surreal by Ambulon barking acidic comments at First Aid and First Aid countering every statement made.

Ratchet pulled out a datapad and started taking notes as they bickered.

Two hours later, Ambulon was half inside a cabinet sorting chemicals. First Aid leaned against the door, holding the vials handed out to him every few minutes as the ward manager shuffled the sets around to clean underneath them. They were both still talking over and around each other, but most of their annoyance seemed to have burnt out.

"Aaaand," their boss drew out, "you've circled around to the beginning again."

Two heads turned, Ambulon's poking into sight around the cabinet door. "We have?"

"Yes. Anything else to add?"

First Aid cocked his helm at the ward manager, who shrugged after a moment of thought. "I can't think of anything that we haven't already covered. You?"

"No. Well?" First Aid gave Ratchet an expectant look. "What's the verdict?"

Good thing he'd kept a running tally, or he'd have been lost at the close of the first hour. The CMO tapped at the datapad screen with his stylus and nodded. "Cooperate."

"Huh."

"Alright."

Rung didn't even look surprised when Ambulon stopped by later that night to let him know the three medics would help. Ratchet had asked him to do it, because Ambulon and Rung were…friends. No matter what else First Aid's gossiping tried to make them out as.

The unfazed acceptance of their decision kindled an inkling of an idea within the ward manager's head, and the question popped out before he could stop it: "Did you do this on purpose?" Knowing that the medibay would devolve into an argument about what the responsibility of a medic was in times of peace, dealing with the nonphysical results of war. Knowing that the three of them wouldn't let the issue lie until they had picked the struts bare and come to a mutually satisfactory agreement.

That small smile. "All I did was ask for assistance and remind you that the war is over."

"Exactly." Narrow yellow optics studied the slender orange mech behind the desk.

Who just kept smiling. "I don't believe in manipulating people, Ambulon."

"No," he said slowly, "but you do believe in helping them."

Expressive brow ridges raised in a questioning look. "And did I help you in some way?"

Ambulon didn't know how to answer that.

At least helping Rung wasn't a hardship. "Kind of unnerving," First Aid admitted when he came back from his turn. The former nurse's plating gleamed, waxed to a luxurious shine that spoke of the hours he'd spent under someone else's hands. "Without my optics or my audios, it was just my proximity sensors, but - well, Rung asked me to give my word that I'd limit use of them." His plating ruffled, opening up to express his discomfort. "I did my best, but that's not a system that shuts down easily. I've got my thoughts on whom the patient is. I'm…I'm not sure I'd have been able to sit still through that if I'd had audio-visual."

Because that wasn't alarming or anything. Ambulon blinked across the medibay at him, and Ratchet shot the other ambulance a reproving look for discussing the session. Not that they weren't all deathly curious, but the war was _over_. Patient confidentiality could be allowed to make a comeback in the medibay, although it'd never departed Rung's office.

Ratchet merely flexed his hands and shrugged when he returned. "I went into recharge. What?" Neither of the junior medics had given him cause to be defensive, but older models and their tendency to snooze off whenever given the chance was a documented thing. Ambulon kept his expression mildly curious while First Aid took full advantage of the face mask to smile widely. What, like Ratchet couldn't tell that was a smile? Mech hadn't been sparked yesterday. "No reason for me to have stayed awake," their boss growled, flexing his hands again. His freshly cleaned, oiled, and exercised hands, they noticed. "All they needed was my hands, and since I had my optics off anyway, and it was quiet, why the frag not…"

The defensive mutter trailed after Ratchet as he stomped back into his office.

Ambulon shook his head and went back to organizing patient charts. He wasn't concerned about his own turn with the mystery patient. He trusted Rung too much to waste time on worry. The patient and First Aid's theories of whom it was? Let them alarm the former nurse. That didn't matter to Ambulon. What mattered to Ambulon was whether or not Rung believed this to be safe. Since Rung obviously did, then the patient's identity didn't matter.

There was a niggling concern about professionalism, but Ratchet and First Aid had both participated already. Waxing and maintenance seemed like odd things to let a patient do, but they'd collectively decided that it could be filed under 'physical therapy.' The point was to allow the patient to touch someone without backlash, to prove that the patient was trusted, and to allow Rung to use the distraction of physical activity to guide the patient through speaking on difficult issues that needed to be addressed. Shutting off audios and optics and limiting the use of proximity sensors was a reassurance to the patient, and involving medics instead of random crewmembers kept patient confidentiality secure if the audio/visual blackout wasn't enough.

However, in a return courtesy gesture, the patient had to sign a nondisclosure waiver, just as if he'd been involved in a sensitive medical procedure. It was more a gesture of Rung's consideration for others' comfort than a requirement, but Ambulon appreciated it nonetheless.

He appreciated it so much more when he started to heat up.

He hadn't expected it. From the sudden stillness over the open commline to Rung, neither had the psychotherapist. The hum of static from an open line silenced as Rung hesitated on the verge of saying something, and Ambulon hadn't a clue how he'd reply when the question came.

This session wasn't about him. It had nothing to do with the infrequent times that Rung laid him down on the couch in this very office to make him twist and cry out. Ambulon knew what that felt like, and it had nothing to do with their respective jobs. This was totally professional, in contrast. Right now, the paint being applied to his stripped plating was for the benefit of the patient Ambulon could neither see nor hear. Ambulon's role was to stay still and quiet, an object placed in the office for use, to be seen and used instead of interacted with. Ambulon was a thing. He was an _object_ with a lousy paintjob but good medical credentials, and existing was the only duty he had to fulfill.

Rung had met him in the office, sat him down in this very chair, and described what would happen. The open commline was there in case Ambulon suffered any sort of discomfort or was suddenly pinged by the medibay for an emergency. Other than that, Rung had promised he would stay close but not touch him unless the patient asked for help during the painting session. The psychotherapist made sure that he knew there were safeties in place, but he'd also made it clear that this session was explicitly about the patient, not Ambulon. Given the building complications of their ongoing affair, the ward manager had understood why the emphasis had been placed on that explanation.

Ambulon was very well aware that he had a weakness for physical attention. The smooth slide of paint down his backstruts felt like concentration. The tiny separate tickles from individual bristles stroked his spark in vastly disproportionate measure to the actual pressure from the brush. The unknown patient was bending thought and effort upon him, and dear holy Primus did Ambulon enjoy that.

He'd been prepared for that. He'd made a point of telling Rung he was prepared for it.

What he hadn't been prepared for, and what had his fans clicking against sudden, panicked lockdown, was how it felt to be an object.

Everything between he and Rung was highly personalized. Every time the slender orange Autobot took a paintbrush to him, it'd been wholly centered on Ambulon and his responses to the stimulus. Rung drowned the ward manager in close observation until he knew where and when and _how_ to make Ambulon writhe in helpless pleasure.

This wasn't about him. This was about the conversation going on above his lowered head, and the busywork occupying the patient's hands. He was a thing between the two mechs in this session, and Ambulon's body was _racing_ toward something headier than arousal but suspiciously more than lust. What he felt was more that purely physical, because his mind had been completely dismissed from this office, and _melt him down for ammunition casing _was it hot!

After being regarded as a filthy traitorous Decepticon because of his body for so long, heating up from someone using his body alone took him completely off-guard. It took _Rung_ off-guard. Guard? What guard? Ambulon's spark was swelling so rapidly with an influx of energy that it'd have plowed over any anything in its path. Mere prior expectations could not stand in its way.

Ambulon was almost panting heated blasts of air out his mouth, desperately trying to keep it stealthy, but that façade wasn't going to last more than a minute at this rate. Electricity crackled over his relays, and the tickling pulses from half-triggered circuit breakers were driving him crazy. There was a localized overload just begging to go off as the brush left his plating and returned, dripping cool paint where the patient had apparently gathered too much liquid this time.

He whined thinly over the open commline, and that shook Rung from his shock.

_*"Do you need to stop?"*_ Of course the psychotherapist was concerned for his well-being. He had respectfully kept their non-relationship behind closed doors because of Ambulon's dignity.

Dignity could hop into a trash compactor; Ambulon was concerned for that overload. It was hovering right on the edge of tipping over as the brush slopped about vigorously to spread the paint up his back before it dried. _*"I-I apologize!"*_ he blurted. It felt like his internal systems were bunched together in his gut, turning around and over themselves until they were a tight knot that would _snap_ at any moment, and oh. Oh, please.

The brush left his back. Ambulon bit his lip and firmly kept his vocalizer offline. That didn't stop him from whimpering over the commline, however.

_*"It's not your fault, Ambulon,"*_ Rung said, refusing to let him take blame. _*"I should have known better than to attempt this, knowing how you respond to - "*_

_*"No!"*_ And wasn't that a hasty yelp. Ambulon swallowed and wrestled his face into a neutral expression instead of pained one he'd been wearing. His voice still wavered a bit. _*"Is - is it obvious..?"*_

Rung was silent for long moment. Ambulon fretted. His spark continued to pulse thickly in his chest, gorged on energy and singing through his sensor network like a live wire connected to the ship generator.

When the psychotherapist spoke again, he sounded oddly off-balance, as if not sure how he should be reacting to the situation. *"_If you are asking about how obviously your arousal is,"*_ ah yes, Rung and his direct statements, _*"the patient is aware. It seems he was aware before I was. However, he did not call attention to it until I asked him to stop. He's under the assumption that the halt is for his sake, and is attempting to convince me that he doesn't mind if you're…enjoying this."*_ There was a pause. _*"I believe he is genuinely fascinated by the discovery that tactile interfacing does not need to involve more than the smallest touch of an mundane item."*_

…uh. The psychotherapist's habitually straightforward speech had a strangely tactful air, this time. Ambulon suppressed embarrassment and curiosity in equal measure. He had to repress his proximity sensors just as hard. Just who was this patient, and - and was he interested by Ambulon's reaction, or just laughing about it?

And did Ambulon really care, at this point? He wanted to overload so bad it nearly hurt. Needy sounds were piling up on his deactivated vocalizer.

_*"Do you think it will help his progress?"*_ Ambulon asked, trying to mask his lack of willpower in a cloak of medical necessity. Perfect, he could succumb to the urge to let them do whatever they wanted to him, as long as it was in the name of helping a patient. It was a plan! Now make it happen.

_*"His progress has no bearing on your - oh my."*_

Rung's remark seemed startled. Perhaps it was a sign of trust to let him hear that broken off exclaimation, or maybe the psychotherapist was just that rattled, but Ambulon seized on the distraction to keep from focusing on the way his spark was giving little pre-overload spasms. _*"What? What happened?"*_

There was another hesitation. _*"Ambulon…I do __**not**__ want to put any pressure on you. Please tell me if you are uncomfortable with any of this."*_ Ambulon started to give a strained, dismissive laugh, but Rung interrupted him. _*"No. Please stop and think. I will not __**use**__ a person like a disposable tool. This borders on indecency already, and I have never - I'm sorry. This is a new technique for me, and while the theory is sound, I have never ventured in attempting to apply it. I don't generally approve of applying theories without test cases backing them up._*" That put him far ahead of First Aid already, in Ambulon's book. _*"I do __**not**__ want you to regret anything that happens here. My patient's progress is not made at your expense. Please stop and think about your own priorities."*_

It was hard when his spark was pressing on his mind in a pleasure-addled haze of spitzing energy. He gave it a try, despite that.

What he settled on wasn't the idea that letting someone see him overload was undignified, or that Rung didn't want him to feel used. He'd suffered worse indignities in the Decepticons for the sake of a patient, and quite honestly, what was happening here was spinning his spark in a way he couldn't regret. Passing up on the chance to _be_ used would be what he regretted.

So he asked, _*"If it were Ratchet here instead of me, would you trust him to make the right decision?"*_

Rung's voice was thoughtful. _*"It would depend on his state of mind, and I would question whether his decision was based on placing the needs of the patient before his own comfort levels."*_

_*"Would you question whether he has the right to make that decision for himself?"*_

_*"May I touch you, Ambulon?"*_ The question came out of nowhere, but the ward manager nodded immediately. He hadn't realized how he'd be craving the hand on his crest until Rung's fingers gently traced along it. It was an impersonal gesture that could be taken as a reassurance or something tender, depending on how the watching patient chose to see it. Ambulon appreciated the care taken in picking that touch instead of something more intimate. _*"Thank you. I understand where you are going with this, but Ratchet and I have a professional relationship without the complications you and I have created outside of duty. There is nothing between Ratchet and I to place any sort of undue pressure to agree or disagree in this situation. You must see that what you and I have could create a conflict of interest. And,"*_ Rung continued delicately, _*"it is more than a bit unusual that you would choose to allow this continue. Your avoidance of any hint of unprofessional behavior outside of closed doors has led me to assume that you value privacy and adhere to a strict division of personal and professional lives."*_

Yes, alright, he could see why that might lead the psychotherapist to wonder if he felt pushed into this. And the simmering energy inside Ambulon _was_ pushing him, make no mistake.

But…still. _*"Do you think it will help your patient's progress?"*_ Ambulon repeated.

The fingers running across the top of his crest paused. _*"Whether or not it continues, this has already caused a breakthrough. He's never spoken so frankly to me on our current topic."*_ There wasn't even a hint about what that topic was, but Ambulon had a couple guesses, none of them anything less than tank-churning considering the history of violence most Autobots had at this point. _*"I - perhaps I should not tell you this,"*_ Rung said reluctantly, _*"but yes, I do believe it will help my patient's progress. It might be best if I arranged something with Ratchet, however, as I think the subject of a tactile overload is not as important as the fact that the process is wanted and deeply enjoyed after a steady, gentle build-up."*_

Putting it like _that_ only made the electricity try to ground through Rung's fingers, and they jittered as if shocked by the surge. The description alone sent a hot flush of pleasure spiraling straight down Ambulon's center, tugging his systems in to tremble and want. To be unimportant, just an object for discussion that facilitated a process…

He insistently nudged his helm into the hand on his crest. Fingers slid down to rest on his cheek, and Rung's apprehension, his worry for Ambulon's well-being, bloomed from the point of contact. The ward manager pushed his arousal and gratitude into his own EM field, opening it up to be felt.

_*"Rung."*_

The ancient Autobot always cared for others, but he was always surprised when they responded by caring for him back. The fingers stroked down Ambulon's face, and Rung's voice was neutral. Never asking more than he was willing to give; never demanding. _*"Yes?"*_

It was new. Somewhat surprising, as well. _*"I want to do this. I want to help the patient. And I think I'm going to enjoy helping you,"*_ Ambulon said confidently.

Frag if he was going to let the experience pass him by.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Shibara's Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and Bob picture_

Picture can be seen at shibara . tumblr post / 53350048789 / picture-commissioned-by-ladydragon76-a-while-ago

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

There was a method to petting Bob that nobody else had managed to pick up yet. Oh, anyone could reach down and pat him. That was nice, and the little guy enjoyed it. He nudged and nuzzled, bounced and begged, and crawled into laps and twined around legs for that. But when Sunstreaker did it, the cheeping could be heard halfway across the ship. That was something special, and nobody else could make Bob do it.

Sideswipe had watched closely. He could get the purr. Most mechs could get the purr, if they gave more than five seconds' attention to the bug. Run the knuckles of a hand hard across Bob's head and tweak his antenna, and listen to that purr. It was adorable. The way he'd hunch down and push into the petting could melt even Ironhide's rusted sparkcasing. The chittering purr and the accompanying enthusiastic aft-wag happened every time, and if a mech did it long enough, then out came the ultimate weapon of cute: rolling over to expose his segmented belly in a bid for tummy pets. That move had gotten Ratchet on camera surrendering to it.

But it wasn't the cheeping.

"Okay, I give. How d'you do it?" Sideswipe hoisted Bob up like a sack of wriggling parts. Bob commenced frantically kicking, trying to gain a foothold on thin air. "Just show me."

Sunstreaker was _not_ smiling. Look at him not smile. However, someone who knew him well might map the incremental upward tilt of the angle of his mouth, and that indicated a good mood.

The golden frontliner reached out to capture one flailing front paw before his pet Insecticon wiggled free. "It's easy, you ignorant lout." His other hand reached for the most obviously dangerous bit of his pet. The part everyone instinctively avoided, because sharp pointy objects and shins were not friends, and involving hands seemed like a very bad idea.

Seemed like, but apparently wasn't. "Aw, come on. Seriously?" Sideswipe had to laugh as Sunstreaker rubbed gently at the base of one of Bob's spikes. Two great big yellow optics squinched up in pleasure, and the clumsy front paws were suddenly curling in small kneading motions while Bob's bitsy hand-claws opened and closed in absolute ecstasy.

"Seriously," Sunstreaker said in a solemn tone as the cheeping began.

* * *

**[* * * * *]**

_Island of the Blue Dolphins_

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

The rescue hadn't gone as planned. In fact, it'd been the opposite of Onslaught's plan. Instead of landing on the island and supplying Blast Off with the fuel they'd assumed he'd lacked in order to complete self-repair and lift off, the other Combaticons had been forced to hold down the shuttle and forcefeed him the cubes of energon. He'd been clearly delirious at the time.

Or so Onslaught had thought at the time. Now he realized that Blast Off's incoherent raving and jerky motions had been an attempt to fight the slave coding enough to warn them away before - well, this. Before the coding detected the proximity-opened gestalt-links and downloaded its activation into the rest of the unit.

Beside him, Swindle sighed and wobbled his tires to sink a little deeper in the sand. On the Jeep's other side, Vortex was lying on his front, face buried in his arms. Onslaught wasn't sure if the 'copter had sprawled out like that because it was comfortable, or because it was just more convenient. Every half an hour or so, a distinctive shudder shivered Vortex's rotor blades, and the arms hiding the mech's face tightened. Muffled sounds came from under their shelter. Onslaught could guess what they were, since the rest of the team had already recited more than their fair share to their absent…Master.

Beyond Vortex's miserably groveling form, Brawl sulked, legs pulled up to his prominent chest. The tank had already demolished everything on this tiny island worth destroying: shrubs, skittering lizards, even the lone hill that made this island more than an exposed sandbar in the middle of a shallow sea. Black, tarry smoke rose in a column to smudge the sky. Onslaught would have stopped him out of concern for attracting human attention and then - inevitably - Autobots, but he hadn't been able to manage more than numb disbelief while Brawl's temper ran its course. Now the island was a wreck, and the tank had exhausted his rage enough to join them in sitting down for a while.

At the end of the row of Combaticons sitting on the beach, Blast Off shifted uncomfortably. There were loud clicks and clanks coming from his direction. Brawl kept twitching and looking at him funny.

Onslaught checked his HUD read-out, pulling up the gestalt-links to check the shuttle's status. The full tank they'd forced on him had declined sharply in the last hours. "Has self-repair completed major repairs?"

His question didn't even get a glance down the row at him. "Yes," was grunted vaguely in his direction.

"Your fuel levels are dropping, still."

"…the coding is changing my body to fit new criteria," Blast Off bit out after a long pause, sounding like he hated his life, the universe, and everything.

Onslaught couldn't really blame him.

Vortex lifted his head out of his arms to stare in horror. "It can do that?" He twisted in the sand to stare in unconscious appeal at Onslaught. "It can't do that! I don't want to change to fit that squishy's - **erk!**"

Onslaught winced as the 'copter flinched. The slave coding have evidently caught on to Vortex's less-than-submissive train of thought, because it immediately started punishing him. Vortex curled up on the sand and began making those whimpery, apologetic noises again.

The others were too concerned with their own read-outs to spare sympathy for him. Onslaught looked at his own dropping fuel levels and accessed his self-repair, dreading what it would tell him it was doing. The list was long but added up to a few short physical changes once he sorted them out. Coloration changes, seal manufacturing to make him more waterproof - a floatation device?! What?! Okay, no. That wasn't as bad as he'd feared, to be honest. If he had to be immersed in ocean water in order to serve his new owner, being more waterproof and being able to float probably made sense. He wasn't sure why his coloration had to change, but he didn't care about _that_.

"My life as a dolphin's bitch: the true story," Swindle said bitterly, transforming to plop down in the sand with his legs akimbo.

Onslaught glanced down at the shorter Decepticon. He had to look the word up. "Bitch would imply that you're a canine."

"Colloquial slang. The implication is that I'm the unofficial housewife of the - of our Master." One thing in Swindle's favor was how quickly he could adapt to any situation. He barely slipped up before correcting himself, and the coding let it slide.

"What's a housewife?" Brawl asked from further down the line.

Vortex lifted his head and blew sand out his helm vents. "Female human, usually found in a servile role in a relationship."

"Swindle ain't a human," the tank said suspiciously, as if the conmech were trying to trick him again.

"He's not female, either." Vortex eased his hands open where they'd closed into pain-seized claws. Acting like nothing had happened, he rolled up onto his side to sweep the smallest Combaticon from helm to tires with a profoundly lewd look. It had a tired edge, like Vortex was doing his best to appear normal but not entirely succeeding. "He's referring to the fact that we're gonna fall all over ourselves to serve our new Lord and Master as soon as," he faltered, and they all winced as the slave coding lashed them for being such failures their Master had abandoned them here on this island, "he returns. When he comes back."

Brawl held his head in both hands. His motor whined painfully. "He **is** coming back, yeah? Yeah?!"

They all knew the answer. Blast Off had bleakly filled them in on the normal schedule of the dolphin pod, speaking the whole time in a dead-voiced monotone. Yet none of them couldn't stop themselves from shooting the shuttle anxious looks of inquiry. As much as they hated the newly activated coding - and they really, truly did hate it - being separated from their owner _hurt_. The coding kept making them punish themselves, and then they got angry at their new Master, and then the anger earned _more_ punishment until they convinced the coding that no, no, they were _good_ slaves who were obedient and loyal and would never think thoughts of hatred and violence against their owner and Lord.

Blast Off gave a bare nod. Relief and resentment flooded them all in equal amounts.

"None of us are a bitch," Onslaught said to cut off Vortex needling Swindle some more. He'd had time to look up the word and cross-reference it with popular media. "The other connotation is explicitly sexual, if not gender-specific. Dolphins are not compatible with our species in that way."

"Wait, so if we're not his bitches, what are we?" Trust Brawl to ask that.

"We're his slaves," Vortex said, speaking insultingly slow. "Obviously."

"No! I mean, yeah, but," Brawl waved a hand, trying to illustrate his point, "even slaves got different jobs. If we aren't bitches - "

"Stop using that word," Blast Off ordered, strangely sharp. The odd clicking from his self-repair system's work had only gotten louder. Even from here, Onslaught's passive scanners could pick up the excess heat output sheeting off him. What kind of changes was the slave coding forcing on the shuttle?

"Uhhh…" The tank thought for a second. "…housewives. If we aren't housewives, what are we?"

That was actually an interesting question. Swindle sat up straight as Onslaught turned to look down the line. Vortex pushed up out of the sand to sit back on his heels. Silence blanketed the beach for a few minutes as the enslaved Combaticons delved into the active code looking for what role they'd been slotted into. A lone slave might be a jack of all trades for duties, but they were an integrated unit. The coding had certainly recognized that when it'd forced Blast Off to transmit the activation sequence to the rest of them. The likelihood of being designated as a 'type' of slave was fairly high because of their prior connection as a unit.

"I think I'm a bodyguard?" Brawl ventured.

That resonated with Onslaught. "So am I."

"What the frag?" Vortex muttered. "Transport? That doesn't make any sense. Or - no, wait." He squirmed, looking queasy. "That explains why self-repair's modding my interior seals to keep water **in** instead of out. Oh, yuck. It's going to be **inside** me?" Panic flashed across his visor. "He! Our Master! Who has every right to be wherever he wants! I didn't mean - " With a low groan, the 'copter fell prostrate in the sand again. His rotor blades shivered violently as the slave coding proceeded to punish disloyal thoughts.

Onslaught looked away, uncomfortable. The way the slave coding worked, they were sabotaging themselves. "Swindle?"

"I'm not sure." The Jeep shrugged. "Butler? Accountant? Estate manager?" Hands flexing helplessly in the sand, the conmech stared out to sea. "This is…I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I mean, I'm in the process of signing over every single one of my fragging accounts to - to someone the humans don't even recognize as sentient. The official documentation is piling up, and I have no idea how it - um, our Master is going to sign off on them. The coding's pressuring me to hand over ownership of my assets immediately, but how does that **work** on a planet where he can't hold citizenship or full personhood anywhere? I have purchases lining up, ready for approval, but I don't know if he wants them or how to ask. Can we even interpret anything from dolphin into a language we understand?"

"Not often," Blast Off put in roughly. "I hope you were fueled up before you arrived, because if you haven't discovered it yet, we can only fuel with permission."

Onslaught twitched. And wasn't that horrible news, considering the rate their self-repair modifications were burning through their fuel levels.

"What kind of purchases?" he asked. There wasn't any point in dwelling on what he couldn't change, after all.

Swindle made a depressed little noise like a deflating tire. Money was slipping through his fingers. "Toys to amuse him. Shipments of fish. The deed to this island and surrounding reef."

"You can afford to buy an **island**?"

The conmech smiled weakly as his commander glared at him. "Might have forgotten to tell you I have a Swiss account or four on the side."

"Yes, you did!"

"So what're you?" Brawl poked Blast Off in the side. The shuttle's engine roared angrily for a second, but Brawl was more concerned with staring at his own hand. "Wow, you're really overheating. You okay?"

That caught Onslaught's attention. Still glaring at Swindle, he barked, "Blast Off! Sitrep ping, **now**."

It took a minute. Fortunately, although the slave coding now registered Blast Off as 'first and favorite' in their new internal hierarchy, the gestalt-link still had priority when it came to status updates. Blast Off glared at the sand but eventually pinged a full system report to his commander.

Who promptly attempted to swallow his own vocalizer. "**What in Primus' name** - "

"I'm the bitch," the shuttle said coldly before the other three Combaticons could annoy him with their curiosity.

It cut through their own personal Pits to make the whole unit reset their visors and wonder if they'd heard that right. Onslaught was still sputtering.

"…what?" one of them asked.

Blast Off huffed air out every vent and repeated it louder, because it wasn't true humiliation unless they were all aware of it. "I'm the bitch. I'm our Master's new pleasure slave."

The sound Swindle made was what Onslaught imagined a drowning Teletraan drone model would make. "Wh-what?"

A broad ping went out to them all. Even Vortex choked on air when the shuttle's new schematics popped up on his HUD.

"That's not **possible**," someone insisted, sounding sick. Onslaught was too sunk in horror to respond, yet.

"It's possible," Blast Off spat. "Our Lord and Master is a mammal, and mammals in general are all about reproductive imperative. So my body is reformatting itself to - to cater to his needs." He - _she_ finally looked as ill as the rest of them felt. "The…the aperture along my back in altmode is...you can guess, I'm sure. And the structure inside my cargo bay is a - I believe it's supposed to be a," the shuttle hunched over, "a womb. Of some kind."

"I'm going to purge," Vortex said matter-of-factly. "You're turning into a freak."

Blast Off just huddled there in the sand looking hopeless. "My main duty as a slave is now mating and gestation. I can't really do that without becoming…compatible."

Onslaught had no idea what to say. He knew he should say _something_, but what exactly did a mech say to someone being forced to take on the anatomy of an organic species in order to serve as - what, a pseudo-mate and carrier of young? Was that even physically possible? Would Blast Off start generating the organic genetic material necessary to _create_ dolphin young? Oh. That was…ugh. No. Horrible.

Brawl suddenly stood up and walked around to sit on Onslaught's other side. Blast Off blinked and watched him go, confused. A second later he got it, and Onslaught smacked Brawl upside the head as the shuttle's visor narrowed in a spiteful, hateful expression. Provoking the shuttle was a bad idea!

"You know," Blast Off said, thoughtfully and sadistic, "dolphins aren't monogamous. The more mating possible, the happier our Master will be."

The Combaticons stared at each other. There was a nearly audible _clunk_ as the slave coding processed that bit of information.

Brawl whimpered.

Onslaught sighed air and turned to glumly look out over the water again. His read-out helpfully updated to reflect the changes self-repair had planned. "…well played, you fragger. Well played."

Beside him, Brawl began making pathetic little sounds. Swindle had his head in his hands, making a similar set of sounds.

Vortex tilted his head to the side and asked, "Wait, does this make us a harem?"

* * *

**[* * * * *]**


End file.
